Systems Validation Engineer, L10

Etched.ai, Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision packages

$500 credit for waiving medical benefits

Housing subsidy of $2k per month

Relocation support

Daily lunch and dinner in office

Wellness benefits

Job summary

Etched.ai, Inc. is looking for an L10 System Validation Engineer based in San Jose, California. You will define production-ready criteria for the accelerator platform and manage crucial debug tasks across various engineering domains.

The ideal candidate should have over 10 years of experience in system validation, demonstrate skills in signal integrity and power integrity debugging, and possess strong Linux and scripting abilities. Exceptional candidates will drive platform readiness and ensure zero critical escapes to production.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in system validation or platform bring-up experience.
• Ability to debug signal integrity and power integrity issues.
• Strong Linux and scripting skills to build automation tools.

Responsibilities

• Own L10 system debug guide for factory failure analysis.
• Lead integration across accelerator cards and power domains.
• Drive issue closure across cross-functional engineering teams.

Skills

System validation

Signal integrity debugging

Linux scripting

Python/Bash scripting

Integration detection

Job description

Job Summary

You will be the L10 System Validation Engineer, defining what it means for the accelerator platform to be production-ready, build the infrastructure to prove it, and personally drive the most critical issues from detection through root cause to verified fix.

Key Responsibilities

• Author and own the L10 system debug guide, serving as the definitive reference for factory failure analysis and debug teams.
• Own end-to-end escalation, debug, and resolution of L10 hardware failures across internal and field teams
• Develop and own L10 system debug guide to be used for the factory by the failure analysis / debug team.
• Own bring-up and integration across accelerator cards, interconnects (Retimers, C2C fabric), power (PSU, power integrity), and thermal domains.
• Lead system-level debug with no guaranteed starting point: hardware, firmware (BMC, BIOS, CPLD), and software all in scope simultaneously.
• Partner directly with CMs to validate incomplete systems, close coverage gaps, and gate production ramp.
• Build ad-hoc instrumentation, automation scripts, and debug workflows to extract signals from unstable, pre-spec systems.
• Run sustained workloads using real model variants under thermal and power stress
• Drive issue closure across cross-functional engineering teams: HW, FW, SW, thermal, power, and manufacturing.
• Represent validation readiness to leadership with crisp, data-backed assessments

You may be a good fit if you have (Must-have qualifications)

• 10+ years in system validation, platform bring-up, or a tightly adjacent discipline - with direct, solo ownership of full L10 (tray/rack) integration on multi-component platforms.
• Demonstrated hands-on signal integrity and power integrity debug: SerDes, PCIe Gen5/6, Ethernet, HBM signaling
• Proven ability to build a coverage model that produces quantitative platform readiness metrics
• Strong Linux and Python/Bash scripting - you should be comfortable writing tools to instrument, automate, and extract data from systems that aren't fully debuggable yet.
• Occasional travel overseas to contract manufacturers
• Experience validating AI accelerator or high-performance compute platforms with accelerators, NVMe, high-speed interconnects, and complex power delivery.
• Track record of detecting integration issues before they escape to production - in environments where specs, tooling, and infrastructure were still being built.

Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)

• Familiarity with BMC/IPMI, UEFI/BIOS bring-up, and CPLD firmware debug.
• Experience with HBM or CSRAM memory subsystem validation.
• Background validating multi-rack or tray-level systems at hyperscaler or AI hardware company scale.
• Exposure to Llama-class inference workloads as stress and coverage tools.
• Prior work with ODM/CM partners (Pegatron, Foxconn, Wistron, or equivalent) in a validation or NPI capacity.

What success looks like

• Critical escapes to production are zero - not because nothing broke, but because you assumed everything would break and proved otherwise.
• You created a structure where there was none: coverage models, automation, debug workflows, and RCA templates exist because you built them.
• Platform stress runs are stable, repeatable, and instrument-verified under sustained thermal and power load.
• Manufacturing partners have clear, data-driven pass/fail gates - and they trust the gates because you defined them.
• Engineering leadership has a real-time, quantified view of platform readiness at every stage of ramp.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
  • $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
• Housing subsidy of $2k per month for those living within walking distance of the office
• Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)
• Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more
• Daily lunch and dinner in our office
• Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification