Design Verification Team - External IP Team

About Etched

Etched is building AI chips that are hard-coded for individual model architectures. Our first product (Sohu) only supports transformers, but has an order of magnitude more throughput and lower latency than a B200. With Etched ASICs, you can build products that would be impossible with GPUs, like real-time video generation models and extremely deep & parallel chain-of-thought reasoning agents.

Job Summary

We are seeking a Design Verification Engineer to join our External IP DV team. You will work with vendors, and ensure all our architecture requirements are met with the IP’s being plugged in. This role demands creativity, deep technical ability, and the drive to tackle complex verification challenges. You will collaborate with architects, RTL designers, and SW/FW/emulation teams to validate correctness and performance across the full hardware-software stack.

Key responsibilities

• End to end ownership of one or more of the following IP’s: PCIe, Ethernet, CPU (arc/arm), low power peripherals, sensors

• Understand vendor IP configurations and handle handshake with internal IP team

• Develop and maintain UVM/SystemVerilog-based verification environments to ensure functional correctness, performance, and compliance with IP specifications.

• Collaborate with integration and SoC DV teams to validate seamless interaction of external IPs within the broader chip architecture.

• Drive coverage closure and sign-off by defining metrics, analyzing gaps, and ensuring comprehensive verification across corner cases and stress scenarios.
  

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

• 5+ years of design verification experience

• You enjoy digging deep into complex verification challenges and finding creative ways to expose corner-case bugs.

• You have hands-on experience with industry-standard verification methodologies like SystemVerilog/UVM and understand how to build scalable, reusable testbenches.

• You are comfortable working with standard IP interfaces and protocols such as PCIe, Ethernet, AXI/AMBA, or ARM/ARC CPUs.

• You thrive in a fast-paced startup environment and can take ownership of projects with minimal direction.

• You collaborate naturally with cross-functional teams — from RTL design to software and emulation — and can clearly communicate technical insights.

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

• Experience handling vendors and integration of IP/VIP’s

• UVM/System Verilog

Benefits

• Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with generous premium coverage

• Housing subsidy of $2,000/month for those living within walking distance of the office

• Daily lunch and dinner in our office

• Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We think most of the progress in the AI field has come from using more FLOPs to train and run models, and the best way to get more FLOPs is to build model-specific hardware. Larger and larger training runs encourage companies to consolidate around fewer model architectures, which creates a market for single-model ASICs.

We are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both as needed.

Compensation Range: $150K - $275K