Lab Operations Intern
Etched
Lab Operations Intern
Etched
Designs chips and servers for running AI models
About Etched
Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best-in-class throughput and latency across prefill and decode. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, we're redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history.
Job Summary
Etched's lab keeps our hardware running 24/7. Our chips, modules, and racks are constantly being tested, and we need sharp, reliable hands to make it happen. You'll run test stations, assemble and rework hardware, cable racks, manage inventory, and own the day-to-day operations that turn raw silicon into working systems. You will see how a frontier AI chip goes from a tray of parts to a running rack, and reliable, curious interns take on engineering work over time.
This role is for people genuinely excited about what we're building and willing to do real, often repetitive work with precision and care. Evening and weekend availability is a plus. This role is fully in-person in San Jose.
You may be a good fit if you:
Have extreme attention to detail
Interested in both software and hardware
Are excited about learning how a hardware company works end to end
Are comfortable with hands-on work
Have evening or weekend availability
Curiosity and bias to action — see what needs doing and figure it out
Strong candidates may also have:
Experience with software, mechanical engineering, or thermal systems
Understanding of accelerator hardware, or datacenter environments
Have owned or built hardware testing systems
We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every qualification.
Program details
12-week paid internship
Generous housing support for those relocating
Daily lunch and dinner in our office
Based at our office in San Jose, CA
Direct mentorship from industry leaders and world-class engineers
Opportunity to work on one of the most important problems of our time
For any questions, contact [email protected]
How we're different
Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system, betting early on transformer and transformer-like architectures and on increasing model sizes. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference.
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 and work across disciplines as needed.
Etched designs AI chips and the server racks built around them for AI companies and cloud providers, focusing only on inference, the work of running trained models to answer requests. In 2024, it unveiled a chip hard-wired to run only transformers, the type of AI model behind ChatGPT, after betting at its founding that they would dominate AI. Etched develops its chips, racks, and software together, and each rack links many chips through a shared pool of fast memory so very large models with long inputs can answer quickly. It earns money by selling these complete systems rather than individual chips. Etched was founded in 2022 and is based in San Jose, California.
Explore more opportunities at Etched