Founding Engineer - FPGA Engineer
Founding Engineer - FPGA Engineer at Zettascale — San Francisco, CA, US
- Company: Zettascale
- Location: San Francisco, CA, US
- Employment type: FULL_TIME
- Salary: USD 150000–300000 / year
- Posted: 2026-07-17
About this 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 technical powerhouse who loves working across the hardware-software boundary
Deeply passionate and obsessed with computing and AI
Hungry to build something that actually matters
Your Background (important in bold)
Background in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent field
Strong digital design fundamentals (VLSI, RTL, pipelining, clocking/reset strategy, latency/throughput tradeoffs, clean microarchitecture)
RTL quality discipline (lint, CDC/RDC, X-prop awareness, assertions/SVA, code review hygiene)
Synthesis/constraints expertise (SDC constraints, synthesis/PPA iteration, timing closure with physical design)
Proficiency with front-end toolchains (VCS/Xcelium/Questa, Verilator, SpyGlass-style linting, DC/Genus-class synthesis)
Build/flow automation and tooling (Python, Tcl, Nix)
Work across architecture, verification, and physical design to hit PPA targets (area/power/perf)
Experience designing compute datapaths and memory subsystems for AI accelerators, GPUs, or high-performance CPUs (bandwidth/latency-driven design)
Huge Plus If
High-speed interface/IP integration experience (PCIe, CXL, DDR/HBM, Ethernet, SerDes)
1+ years (or equivalent) designing synthesizable RTL (SystemVerilog/Verilog) for ASICs and/or high-performance FPGA prototypes
HW/SW boundary experience (drivers/firmware bring-up, performance counters, profiling, build systems)
Experience with systems programming (Linux kernel modules, low-level)
Autodidactic polymath with a strong mathematical background
Previous tapeout experience through university and/or professional projects
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.