{"id":105548,"url":"https://alion.io/job/etched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2","title":"Physical Design Engineer - Block Level, Subsystem Implementation","company":{"id":5021,"name":"Etched","domain":"etched.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/etched","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":89,"open_postings":75,"ghost_share":0.107,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":162,"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Jose, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":200000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Formal Verification","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Perl","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Synopsys Fusion Compiler","optional":false},{"name":"Synopsys PrimeTime","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-23T03:17:35Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-23","last_verified_at":"2026-10-11T23:17:24Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":80,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":80},"description":"About Etched\nEtched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best-in-class throughput and latency across both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history.\nJob Summary\nEtched is building a new category of AI hardware: frontier inference clusters. As a Physical Design Engineer, you will own block-level implementation from synthesis through GDSII sign-off. You will drive Block-level & Subsystem PPA Optimization, and collaborate closely with RTL designers to provide actionable feedback, ensuring we iterate at unprecedented speeds to bring our products to market.\nKey Responsibilities\nOwn block-level and/or subsystem physical design end to end, including floorplanning, synthesis, placement, clock tree synthesis, and routing through GDSII.\n\nDrive block-level timing closure across all corners and modes, including constraint development, STA debug, and functional and timing ECO implementation.\n\nClose block-level signoff across EM, IR drop, RC extraction and correlation, and physical verification (DRC, LVS, antenna).\n\nGenerate abstracts, views, and timing budgets for clean hierarchical integration of your blocks into the top level.\n\nCollaborate with RTL Designers and provide Physical Design feedback to improve PPA.\n\nContinuously improve the PPA of owned blocks and contribute learnings back into the shared RTL-to-GDSII flow.\n\nSupervise physical design work outsourced to 3rd party services and be accountable for the quality and closure of delivered blocks.\n\nYou may be a good fit if you have\n5-10+ years of previous experience with PD\n\nTools, flow, and design methodology from RTL synthesis to GDSII sign-off\n\nExperience with back-end design and timing closure on advanced process nodes (5nm and below)\n\nExperience with Cadence (Innovus, Genus) or Synopsys (Fusion Compiler) automated RTL-to-GDSII flows\n\nExperience with sign-off tools (PrimeTime, Tempus, Voltus, etc.)\n\nExperience with UPF-based low power design methodology, power verification, synthesis, scan insertion/ATPG, formal verification, floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, IR drop, and EM/antenna analysis\n\nScripting ability in Tcl, Python, or Perl for flow automation and debug\n\nDeeply creative and able to think from first principles\n\nStrong candidates may also have experience with\nFamiliarity with modern ML and LLM model architectures\n\nAbility to program with Python or another scripting language\n\nFamiliarity with AI tools for programming/coding\n\nStartup experience or comfort working in fast-paced environments\n\nBenefits\nMedical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage\n$500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits\n\nHousing subsidy of $2.5k per month for those living within walking distance of the office\n\nRelocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)\n\nVarious wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more\n\nDaily lunch and dinner in our office\n\nUnlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification\n\nHow we’re different\nEtched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference, unlike many of our competitors.\nWe 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 and work across disciplines as needed.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3688,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Processors, MCUs & AI Chips","AI Compute & Inference","AI Chips & Accelerators"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-07-23T03:17:35Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 5","filings_12m":5,"filings_prev_12m":0,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":173500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-03T21:08:04+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":59,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.813,"p_room":0.72,"age_days":79,"expected_fill_days":162,"reasons":["conf:3","win:mid","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/etched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/etched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-12T02:07:22Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2997,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-13T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":5021},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5021"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fetched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fetched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fetched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/etched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fetched-physical-design-engineer-block-level-subsystem-implementation-2"}]}