Failure Analysis Test Engineer

Department: Production

Location: San Jose

Compensation: $175K – $225K • Plus Significant Equity

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

As part of the Manufacturing Test Engineering team, the Failure Analysis Test Electrical Engineer at Etched, you will own the electrical debug and failure analysis engineering side of our AI systems, ensuring seamless product introduction from NPI through high-volume ramp. You will collaborate with hardware, ASIC, diagnostics, test, and reliability engineering to drive diagnosability, manufacturing predictability, yield process and material improvements, and product reliability.

This role focuses on PCBA and L10 Server diagnosability and efficiency of repair, and sustaining improvements to ensure our AI hardware meets the highest standards of quality and reliability.

Key responsibilities

• Set up and operate test equipment (oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, DMMs).

• Maintain detailed records of failure data, repair actions, and update debug procedures.

• Collaborate with design and production teams to resolve recurring issues and improve product yield.

• Partner with Component Engineering, Supply Chain, and Hardware teams to influence component selection and mitigate manufacturing risk early in the design cycle.

• Perform board bring-up and debug, applying DOE/EFA and hands-on lab work.

• Review and influence Process FMEA and Design FMEA, providing diagnostics input.

• Provide leadership in complex issue resolution and drive defect/yield improvement initiatives. Collaborative mindset to work effectively with cross-functional teams and suppliers.

• You will have 20% international travel expectation to Taiwan and other future factory locations.

• You would set yourself apart from the crowd if you have experience in fixture design and factory implementation support.

• Diagnose and repair electronic assemblies (PCBA) down to the component level.

• Preferred working experience in manufacturing environment working directly with Contract Manufacturers (CMs) and ODMs to close capability gaps, improve yield, and qualify new components.

You may be a good fit if you have

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.

• 5+ years of experience in manufacturing, product, or electrical engineering.

• Strong knowledge of system hardware architectures and PCB fabrication/assembly processes.

• Strong understanding of electronics circuits, schematics, and PCB Layouts.

• Experience with DFX/DFM, yield assessment, and board-level debug.

• Hands-on experience with PCB CAD/CAE tools (e.g., Allegro, Valor) and understanding of design-to-build flows.

• Proven ability to work across NPI and sustaining environments, from proto bring-up to ramp.

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 + 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 (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 as needed.