Physical Design Engineer - Flow & Methodologies
Etched · San Jose
CHECKED 8H AGO
Infrastructureonsitesenior$200k–$300k
At a glance
Highlights
- Architect Etched's RTL-to-GDSII flow from first principles for frontier inference.
- Build hardware co-designing chips, racks, and software for AI inference.
- Drive PPA gains and accelerate time-to-market with novel CAD methodologies.
What they offer
- Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage
- $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits
- Housing subsidy of $2.5k 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
Ideal candidate
A creative, first-principles physical design engineer with 5-10+ years experience who loves building high-velocity automation and accelerating frontier AI hardware in a fast-paced, in-person team.
Requirements
- 5-10+ years of previous experience with PD or PD methodology/CAD
- Experience building and owning automated RTL-to-GDSII flows used by multiple block owners
- Experience creating block level and full chip level PG mesh from scratch, including interpretation of design rule documents and EM/IR analysis
- Experience with DRC-clean floorplanning flows and automated checks
- Experience with Cadence (Innovus, Genus) or Synopsys (Fusion Compiler) automated RTL-to-GDSII flows
- Experience with PPA tuning and timing correlation across pre-route, post-route, and signoff environments
- Experience integrating sign-off tools (PrimeTime, Tempus, Voltus, Pegasus, Calibre) into production flows
- Experience with back-end design on advanced process nodes (5nm and below)
- Experience with UPF-based low power design methodology and multi-mode multi-corner setup
- Strong Tcl and Python skills for flow development and automation
- Deeply creative and able to think from first principles
- remote policy
- fully in-person
Lab profile
About Etched
Building specialized AI chips and systems for frontier inference with best-in-class throughput and latency.
What they build
- Sohu AI inference chip
- AI racks and hardware systems
- Inference software stack
Known for
- Full-stack co-design of chips, racks, software and manufacturing
- Best-in-class throughput and latency for prefill and decode
- Inference-optimized architecture
Key facts
- Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors