PCIe Validation Engineer

Department: ASIC

Location: San Jose

Employment Type: FullTime

About Etched

Etched is building the world’s first AI inference system purpose-built for transformers - delivering over 10x higher performance and dramatically lower cost and 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. 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.

Job Summary

We are seeking a highly skilled Silicon Validation Engineer to own PCIe bringup and qualification on our silicon. As the technical owner of PCIe validation, you will drive electrical characterization, link training debug, protocol-level validation, and end-to-end performance validation — working closely with design, DV, SI/PI, Firmware, and Platform teams. You will be hands-on in the lab and equally comfortable tracing issues from link margin optimization all the way through protocol debug and performance tuning.

Key Responsibilities

• PCIe Bringup & Link Debug

  • Own PCIe validation strategy, test plan, and execution across silicon revisions

  • Bring up PCIe links on new silicon: link up / link training optimization, LTSSM debug, lane margining, equalization tuning

  • Debug LTSSM state transitions, link training failures, recovery events, and correctable/uncorrectable errors

  • Work with SI/PI on channel and package co-design feedback for future silicon

• Electrical Characterization

  • Characterize PCIe TX/RX against the PCIe base spec and channel spec across PVT and across lanes

  • Perform electrical validation: eye diagram, jitter, preset sweeps, TX FFE / RX CTLE+DFE tuning, compliance pattern testing

  • Operate lab equipment including high-bandwidth real-time and sampling scopes, BERT, VNA, protocol analyzers, and pattern generators

• Protocol Validation

  • Validate PCIe protocol behavior: TLPs, DLLPs, ordered sets, flow control, credit management, and ordering rules

  • Debug and root-cause issues spanning electrical, protocol, firmware, and system layers; drive them to closure with the right owner

• Performance Validation

  • Run end-to-end performance validation: throughput, latency, DMA performance, multi-lane scaling, error injection and recovery

• Infrastructure & Automation

  • Build and improve validation infrastructure: automation, regression, and coverage reporting

  • Partner with design, DV, firmware, and platform teams to ensure robust coverage across silicon revisions

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

• BS/MS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent; 5+ years of PCIe silicon validation experience

• PCIe Electrical

  • PCIe base spec and channel spec — Gen3/Gen4/Gen5 required; Gen6 a plus

  • TX and RX equalization: FFE, CTLE, DFE, preset behavior, and EQ link training

  • LTSSM, link training and status state machines, recovery and error handling

  • Link bringup and link optimization methodology

  • Hands-on with lab equipment: high-bandwidth scopes, BERT, VNA, protocol analyzers, pattern generators

• PCIe Protocol

  • TLP and DLLP structure, types, and handling

  • PCIe ordered sets (TS1/TS2, SKP, EIEOS, etc.)

  • DMA, flow control, credits, ordering, and error reporting

  • Config space and enumeration

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

Experience with any of the following is beneficial but not required.

• End-to-end PCIe performance validation: throughput / latency / QoS characterization against a root complex or endpoint

• Ability to write and modify firmware and/or software test cases — C, Python, or driver-level Linux — to exercise PCIe from the host or device side

• Cross-layer debug experience: signal integrity to protocol analyzer to firmware trace

• Experience with PCIe compliance testing and PCI-SIG workshops

• Familiarity with a variety of PHY and controller IPs

• Scripting and automation experience: Python, test frameworks, lab automation

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage

  • $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits

• Housing subsidy of $2k 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

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 and Taipei, 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.