{"id":2341201,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zettascale-founding-silicon-engineer","title":"Founding Silicon Engineer","company":{"id":2455495,"name":"Zettascale","domain":"zscc.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/zscc","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Work at a Startup","truth_index":null},"role":"Hardware","role_family":"Hardware","seniority":"junior","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 Francisco, 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":1,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Cocotb","optional":false},{"name":"Formal Verification","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SystemVerilog","optional":false},{"name":"UVM","optional":false},{"name":"Verilog","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-12T11:22:28Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T10:36:46Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"The Mission\nZettascale Computing is building the highest-performance, most energy-efficient AI chips for artificial superintelligence to accelerate discovery and further humanity's understanding of the universe.\nWe are a high-agency, deeply technical, and intensely mission-driven founding team. We value first principles thinking, intellectual honesty, speed, and full ownership.\nThe Role\nBe part of a small team building Zettascale Computing's silicon efforts from FPGA prototype through tapeout and bring-up. You will set technical direction across architecture, RTL, verification, tooling, and timing closure, build the silicon team as the company grows, and partner closely with the PCB, interconnects, racks and pods, and software teams.\nWhat You Will Build\nLead development and optimization of the FPGA prototype of our XPU\nDesign and review the RTL that becomes our first ASIC\nBuild the lint, simulation, synthesis, timing, and verification flows\nMake architecture decisions across compute, memory, on-chip interconnect, and control\nDrive the design to tapeout and bring-up\nWhat You Bring\nStrong digital design fundamentals, including RTL, pipelining, clocks, resets, latency, throughput, and clean microarchitecture\nHands-on FPGA experience taking real designs from RTL to a working board\nSynthesizable SystemVerilog or Verilog you are proud of\nFluency with simulation, linting, synthesis, SDC constraints, timing closure, and CDC\nExperience automating hardware flows with Python, Tcl, Make, Nix, or similar tools\nComfort designing compute datapaths and memory systems around bandwidth and latency\nExperience with AI accelerators or low-level AI kernels\nA proven autodidact\nTapeout experience, large FPGA prototypes, high-speed interface integration, formal verification, UVM, cocotb, firmware, drivers, and systems programming are strong advantages.\nExpectations\nThis is a full-time, in-person role at our San Francisco HQ. It is not remote or hybrid\nYou move quickly, take broad ownership, and prefer working hardware over perfect specifications\nWe do not track hours. We care about output, quality, and throughput\nCritical tapeout, bring-up, and delivery milestones sometimes require long days and weekends. We expect you to lean in when they do\nYou are ready to go all-in and do the work of your life\nCompensation and Support\n$200,000 to $300,000 base salary\n1.00% to 2.00% equity\nMedical, dental, and vision coverage\n401(k), equipment, and gym support\nRelocation assistance to San Francisco\nVisa sponsorship where feasible\nFirst interview\nTechnical screening\nIn-person full-day technical screening at our office\nWork trial (paid), 1-4 weeks\nOffer","description_format":"text","description_chars":2660,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":1,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Relocation assistance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["AI Chips & Accelerators"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-12T11:22:28Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":24,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early","comp:junior"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zettascale-founding-silicon-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zettascale-founding-silicon-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T11:53:00Z","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":18418,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"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":2455495},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2455495"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fzettascale-founding-silicon-engineer"},{"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%2Fzettascale-founding-silicon-engineer"},{"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%2Fzettascale-founding-silicon-engineer"},{"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/zettascale-founding-silicon-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fzettascale-founding-silicon-engineer"}]}