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Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence, co-designing chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best-in-class throughput and latency for AI inference workloads. The company is backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers.
This role serves as the primary manufacturing engineering representative at Etched's Contract Manufacturing partner in Taiwan, acting as the technical bridge between US-based Product Design teams and Asian manufacturing partners. Unlike traditional manufacturing engineers, this position does not own production operations or SMT equipment. Instead, it provides technical leadership, mentorship, and manufacturing engineering oversight to ensure suppliers successfully industrialize and manufacture high-complexity PCBAs with exceptional quality, yield, and reliability.
Key responsibilities include serving as the primary manufacturing engineering interface with contract manufacturers, building strong technical relationships with supplier engineering teams, and mentoring supplier engineers on industry best practices. The role drives Design for Manufacturability (DfM), New Product Introduction (NPI), and process optimization. You will support prototype through production builds, assess manufacturing readiness, and monitor first-pass yield during product introduction.
The engineer will review SMT manufacturing processes for compliance with company standards, evaluate stencil design, solder paste application, reflow profiles, and inspection strategies. You will recommend process improvements that enhance yield, reliability, and manufacturability, and validate implementation of improvements and corrective actions.
Cross-functional collaboration is essential, partnering with Hardware Design, PCBA Manufacturing Technology Engineers, Supplier Quality, Supply Chain, and Operations teams. The role includes participating in root cause investigations, corrective action reviews, and identifying opportunities to improve manufacturing robustness, efficiency, and scalability across multiple manufacturing sites.
Required qualifications include a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Manufacturing, or Electrical Engineering (or proven equivalent experience), 5+ years in PCBA manufacturing engineering, SMT process engineering, NPI, or supplier manufacturing engineering. Strong understanding of SMT assembly processes (stencil printing, pick-and-place, reflow soldering, AOI, SPI, X-ray inspection) is essential. Experience supporting contract manufacturers or EMS providers, knowledge of DfM and PCB assembly processes, and experience with complex PCBAs (fine-pitch BGAs, QFN, CSP, high-density assemblies) are required. Fluency in English and Mandarin, along with ability to travel within Taiwan, is mandatory.
Nice-to-have qualifications include experience with AI, server, networking, or high-performance electronics; knowledge of IPC standards (IPC-A-610, IPC-7095, IPC-7351, J-STD-001); solder joint reliability expertise; PFMEA and Control Plans familiarity; and experience with multinational engineering teams.
