Etched.ai
San Jose
Full time
On-site
Platform
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're hiring an Operations Lead to serve as a high-impact business partner embedded within our Software Engineering Team. This person will be responsible for helping the department function like a high-performing startup within a startup, with clear goals, smooth execution, and strong internal alignment.
The role blends strategy, operational design, planning discipline, and execution. You'll work closely with our VP of Software Engineering to ensure hiring, budgeting, performance tracking, and quarterly execution all run at the speed and precision required for first-of-its-kind hardware.
This is not a project manager, EA, or Chief of Staff role. You will be a critical part of how Etched’s most important technical bets are made and executed.
Portfolio & Cadence Management: Own the company-level calendar of checkpoints and interlocks (QBR, MBR, Board, All-Hands). Enforce on-time deliverables and maintain the master list of due dates.
Jira Program Operations & Automation: Build and validate workflows, labels/components, automations, service-desk splits, and SLA guardrails. Provide dashboards and drive continuous Jira improvements.
Blackpaper Execution: Own templates and processes, manage checkpoint gates, and ensure cross-functional sponsor sign-offs for blackpapers.
Onboarding & Offboarding: Maintain onboarding checklist templates and ensure cross-functional planning for new software hires, including coordination with other departments (IT, space planning, etc.).
Hiring Operations & Facilities: Maintain hiring pipeline dashboards, visa timelines, and risk flags. Produce weekly hiring status reports for VP. Own master seating/space plans, lab requirements, and vendor coordination.
KPI & Trend Reporting: Build and maintain dashboards for software health and operations. Scrub outliers, create trend lines, and ensure data integrity.
Service Desk & Tooling Operations: Enable project deployments and tool customizations, automate routing logic, enforce SLAs, and generate reporting.
Governance, Risk & Knowledge Management: Maintain policy documentation, decision logs, and ensure cross-functional visibility into governance and policy discussions.
Continuous Efficiency Improvement: Analyze software operations and execution, identify efficiency opportunities, implement improvement programs, and measure results.
5-8 years of experience in business operations, engineering operations, or technical program roles in fast-paced environments
Operations Strategy, Business Operations, or seasoned Chief of Staff background at Tier 1 startups or technical companies
Experience designing and managing complex, high-stakes timelines with cross-functional dependencies
High trust with senior engineers and executives, with the ability to influence without authority and drive decisions forward
Strong aptitude for learning new software tools and building internal systems (strong spreadsheet and modeling skills are a plus)
A bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent technical fluency and credibility
Driving recruiting results including sourcing strategy, comp design, and offer negotiation
Running performance review processes and org design projects in engineering-heavy orgs
Budget management and vendor contract oversight for R&D-focused departments
Working closely with technical founders or executives in an early or growth-stage company
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 West San Jose
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 West San Jose, 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: $175K - $275K