Full-Time
Director of Software
Posted on 7/17/2025
MatX
51-200 employees
Designs high-throughput AI hardware chips
Compensation Overview
$120k - $400k/yr
Mountain View, CA, USA
Hybrid
Hybrid role requires 3 days on-site per week in Mountain View.
 Engineering Management (1) |
|---|
- Successfully delivered a complete software stack for an ML Accelerator
- Deep expertise in ML compilers and ML kernel development
- Ten plus years of team leadership experience, overseeing a 20+ person team within the software organization
- Willingness to work in a hybrid office setting at the Mountain View, California office three days a week (Tuesday through Thursday)
- Own the overall execution and delivery of the compiler and kernels for MatX hardware
- Support technical leads in developing and maintaining the technical direction and roadmap for compiler and kernel development
- Build and track team schedules, assess feasibility, and monitor progress against key milestones
- Manage and mentor the engineering team, focusing on skill development and performance growth
- Lead the hiring process to grow the team with top engineering talent
- Deeply engage in technical designs, reviews, and implementation in addition to management responsibilities
- Experience with machine learning compiler projects such as Google XLA, JAX, Meta PyTorch, OpenAI Triton; experience delivering software stacks for ML accelerators is highly valued
- Experience working with large-scale ML workloads for AGI or similar
MatX builds high-throughput AI accelerators for large language models. Its main product is a dedicated chip where every transistor is optimized for running large neural networks, aiming to deliver strong performance for training and inference of LLMs. The company also develops the surrounding software stack, including compilers, to make the hardware easy to program for ML engineers (e.g., through JAX-based workflows). Unlike general-purpose processors, MatX focuses on specialization and full-stack optimization from silicon to software. Its goal is to enable organizations with substantial AI workloads to scale efficiently by providing powerful, purpose-built hardware and the compatible software tools they need to deploy and optimize large models.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Series B
Total Funding
$604.9M
Headquarters
Mountain View, California
Founded
2022
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Founders Reiner Pope and Mike Gunter leverage Google TPU expertise for 10x performance.
- $500M Series B from Jane Street and Situational Awareness funds TSMC manufacturing.
- Highest FLOPS/mm² supports clusters of hundreds of thousands of chips scaling.
What critics are saying
- Nvidia's Rubin platform launches late 2026 with NVLink and CUDA ecosystem lock-in.
- TSMC prioritizes Nvidia, delaying MatX's 2027 shipments by 6-12 months.
- Etched ships transformer chips first at $5B valuation, capturing AI labs.
What makes MatX unique
- MatX designs chips dedicating every transistor to LLM workloads unlike general-purpose GPUs.
- MatX One combines SRAM for low-latency weights and HBM for long-context KVs.
- Splittable systolic array optimizes energy efficiency on large and small matrices.
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Benefits
Company Equity
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -7%1 year growth
↓ -2%2 year growth
↓ -2%MatX raises $500 million to build AI training chips. The companu is building custom AI processors for training LLMs faster and more efficiently PUBLISHED: Mon, Mar 2, 2026, 11:14 AM UTC | UPDATED: Sat, Mar 7, 2026, 4:40 AM UTC 2 mins read Photo: Bloomberg * | MatX raised $500M in Series B funding to build custom AI processors optimized for large language model training and inference * | The company is designing specialized AI chips targeting roughly 10x better performance than current leading GPUs by optimizing hardware for matrix math and parallel AI workloads * | Founded by former Google TPU engineers, MatX plans to manufacture chips via TSMC with commercial shipping targeted for 2027 MatX has raised $500 million in Series B funding, led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, a fund created by former Leopold Aschenbrenner. The startup is building custom AI processors designed specifically for training large language models faster and more efficiently than general-purpose GPUs. MatX's core ambition is aggressive: make its chips roughly 10x better at LLM training performance and inference efficiency compared to current leading hardware. The company is part of a broader shift in AI infrastructure, where specialized chips are becoming as important as models themselves. Instead of relying on general-purpose computing hardware, MatX is designing silicon optimized for matrix math, parallel AI workloads, and long-context model training. In practice, that means tailoring chip architecture, memory access patterns, and data movement efficiency specifically for AI workloads rather than traditional computing tasks. MatX was founded in 2023 by former Google TPU engineers. CEO Reiner Pope previously led AI software development for Google's Tensor Processing Units, while co-founder Mike Gunter helped design TPU hardware. Their experience shows in the company's approach: vertically integrating hardware and AI workload optimization rather than treating chips as generic computing components. The new capital will be used to manufacture chips through TSMC, with production and commercial shipping targeted for 2027. MatX is entering a highly competitive AI chip race against other startups and incumbents building alternatives to GPUs, as demand for AI training compute continues to outpace supply. More Topics:
The startup was founded by former Google TPU engineers in 2023.
Nvidia challenger AI chip startup MatX raised $500M. February 25, 2026 MatX, a chip startup founded by two former Google hardware engineers, has raised a $500 million Series B led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, an investment fund formed by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. The company's goal is to make its processors 10 times better at training LLMs and delivering results than Nvidia's GPUs. Other investors in the round include Marvell Technology, NFDG, Spark Capital, and Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, the startup's founder and CEO Reiner Pope announced Tuesday in a post on LinkedIn. Although the company didn't release its latest valuation, Etched, MatX's closest competitor, raised a $500 million round at a $5 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported last month. Etched didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. MatX's latest round comes more than a year after its Series A of about $100 million, which was led by Spark Capital. TechCrunch earlier reported that the 2024 round valued the startup at more than $300 million. Before co-founding MatX in 2023, Pope led AI software development for Google's TPUs, the tech giant's proprietary AI chips. His co-founder, Mike Gunter, was a lead designer of the TPU hardware before leaving to launch the startup. The new funding will help MatX produce its chips with TSMC, with plans to start shipping them in 2027. Techcrunch event Boston, MA | June 9, 2026 #Nvidia #challenger #chip #startup #MatX #raised #500M February 25, 2026 Keep up to date with the most important news. Add a comment Add a comment Apple's new age verification instruments block underage app downloads the place required by legislation. Marking 4 years of struggle in ukraine with highly effective music and movies. February 25, 2026
US AI chip startup MatX raises $500m to compete with Nvidia. United States-based AI chip startup MatX has raised over US$500 million in a funding round led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, a firm founded by ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. The company, founded by former Google semiconductor engineers Reiner Pope and Mike Gunter, aims to develop hardware to compete with Nvidia in the AI chip market. MatX plans to finalize its chip design this year and begin shipping in 2027, working with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to produce the hardware. The startup claims its chip can outperform Nvidia's upcoming Rubin Ultra based on performance per square millimeter, targeting AI training and inference workloads. Food for thought. Implications, context, and why it matters. ### MatX bets on a 'post-ChatGPT' design backed by an AGI-driven investment thesis * MatX started after massive transformer models (a type of AI model architecture behind many large language models) took off, so it calls itself a 'post-ChatGPT' company 1. * Its chip design can be shaped around large language model workloads, which may sidestep the memory capacity limits that have hit SRAM-only designs (chips that rely primarily on static random-access memory, a fast but typically lower-capacity type of memory) 1. * Situational Awareness invested in MatX. The firm was founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner and it now manages more than $1.5 billion 2. * Aschenbrenner's fund argues that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is close, described as "in a couple of years" in Fortune's reporting. It targets the AI supply chain, including semiconductors, infrastructure, and power companies 2. ### A 2027 launch pits MatX against Nvidia's platform ecosystem, not just a chip * MatX plans to ship in 2027, so it will face NVIDIA's newer system platforms rather than today's hardware. * NVIDIA said Rubin-based products will be available from partners in the second half of 2026 3. * Beating a single chip on silicon area misses what matters, since NVIDIA wins through system-level integration. * NVIDIA pairs the GPU with its Vera CPU, NVLink 6 interconnect, and a mature software stack. That package frames Rubin as an integrated "AI factory" that startups struggle to match 4. * MatX may also need Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s (TSMC's) scarce advanced packaging capacity, since advanced process and packaging capacity has become a strategic bottleneck in the industry 5. How would you feel if you could no longer use Tech in Asia? Share, tag us, and land on our Wall of!
MatX, an AI chip startup founded by two Google semiconductor alumni, has raised over $500 million in a new funding round to compete with Nvidia. The company is now valued at several billion dollars. The financing was led by Jane Street and Situational Awareness, the investment firm founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. Other backers include Marvell Technology, venture firms NFDG and Spark Capital, and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison. MatX joins a growing number of startups developing AI chip hardware to challenge Nvidia's dominance in the market. The company was founded by former members of Google's semiconductor business.