Founding Engineer - Cluster / PCB Engineer

About Zettascale

Energy efficient chips for AI

Tech

Our XPU chips are state-of-the-art AI compute engines, highly programmable and efficient enough to support AGI, and eventually ASI, without requiring massive power infrastructure. The major bottleneck in computing is memory movement (often referred to as the "memory wall"). Moving large amounts of data from point A to B is **very expensive** in both time and energy. A good rule of thumb is 1 bit = 1 pJ, and modern AI models are >100 GB in parameters. Our **polymorphic architecture** is more programmable, which lets us fuse kernels more aggressively. That keeps more of the model's computation in-place, so we move less data, route it more efficiently, and write back to memory less often.

The role

# **We're Building the Next Generation of Chips to Power AI. Join Us.****At Zetta, we're building the next NVIDIA to accelerate AI discovery. Our XPU chips are state-of-the-art AI compute engines**, versatile and efficient enough to support **_AGI_**, and eventually **_ASI_**, without requiring massive power infrastructure.The team consists of exceptional engineers **obsessed** with pushing the boundaries of what's possible in computing, **and we're now seeking our next technical member!**### **You Are*** **Ready to go all-in and do the work of your life*** **Willing to be hardcore when pushing technical boundaries*** A systems-level hardware engineer who thinks from chip pins all the way to the data center floor* Deeply **passionate** and **obsessed** with computing and AI* Hungry to build something that actually matters### **Your Background*** Background in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Physics, _or equivalent field_* **Strong high-speed PCB design experience** (high layer count, controlled impedance, stackup design, via optimization)* **Signal integrity & power integrity expertise** (SI/PI simulation, eye diagrams, S-parameter analysis, decoupling strategy, IR drop)* **High-speed interface design** (PCIe Gen5/6, CXL, DDR5/HBM, Ethernet 400G/800G, SerDes routing)* **Proficiency with PCB toolchains** (Altium, Cadence Allegro, KiCad, HyperLynx, Ansys SIwave/HFSS)* **Cluster & system-level design experience** (server/blade architecture, backplanes, rack-scale interconnect topologies)* **Thermal & cooling expertise** (air, liquid, and immersion cooling; thermal simulation; cold plate design; airflow modeling)* **Power delivery design** (multi-phase VRMs, high-current PDN, board-level power sequencing)* **Bring-up & debug expertise** (oscilloscopes, VNAs, TDR, BERT, JTAG, root-causing SI/PI/thermal issues on real boards)* **Build/flow automation and tooling** (Python, Tcl, Nix)* **Work across PCB, mechanical, thermal, and system architecture** to hit cluster-level PPA targets### **Huge Plus If*** **Experience designing AI/HPC accelerator boards or systems** (GPU servers, TPU pods, custom ASIC carrier boards)* **Rack-scale & data center experience** (OCP designs, NVLink/NVSwitch-class fabrics, optical interconnects, top-of-rack networking)* **DFM/DFT-aware PCB design** (manufacturability reviews, test point strategy, boundary scan, bed-of-nails)* **1+ years (or equivalent) designing high-speed, high-layer-count PCBs** for ASICs, GPUs, or networking gear* **Mechanical/enclosure design experience** (sheet metal, chassis design, working with ME/Industrial Design teams)* **HW/SW boundary experience** (board bring-up, BMC/firmware, telemetry, profiling, build systems)* Autodidactic polymath with a strong mathematical background* **Someone who doesn't fret when faced with near-impossible technical challenges**### **The Opportunity*** **Be one of the first employees shaping a revolutionary technology*** Work directly with the founding team of exceptional engineers at our San Francisco HQ* Own critical decisions that will influence the future of AI compute* Grow into a technical leader as we scale* Highly competitive compensation + significant equity**This is THE chance to do the work of your life.** The chance to build something that will be remembered. **To go hardcore on a technical moonshot that will actually matter for over 100 to 1,000 years.**

Skills

• CAD Design
• Prototyping
• PCB design
• FPGAs
• Altium