Architecture Intern - Inference

Progress towards a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related field

Proficiency in C++ or Rust.

Understanding of performance-sensitive or complex distributed software systems, e.g. Linux internals, accelerator architectures (e.g. GPUs, TPUs), Compilers, or high-speed interconnects (e.g. NVLink, InfiniBand).

Familiarity with PyTorch or JAX.

Ported applications to non-standard accelerator hardware or hardware platforms.

Deep knowledge of transformer model architectures and/or inference serving stacks (vLLM, SGLang, etc.)

Low-latency, high-performance applications using both kernel-level and user-space networking stacks.

Deep understanding of distributed systems concepts, algorithms, and challenges, including consensus protocols, consistency models, and communication patterns.

Solid grasp of Transformer architectures, particularly Mixture-of-Experts (MoE).

Built applications with extensive SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) optimizations for performance-critical paths.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every qualification.

12-week paid internship (June - August 2026)

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 internships@etched.com .

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 West San Jose, 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.

Etched is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.