Contract Manufacturing Manager
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 both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference.
Job Summary
Etched is looking for a Contract Manufacturing Manager to lead our global contract manufacturing strategy as we scale production of advanced AI hardware systems.
Key Responsibilities
Develop and execute Etched’s contract manufacturing strategy across L6, L10, and L11
Identify, evaluate, select, and onboard global CM, ODM, JDM, and EMS partners
Own executive-level supplier relationships, business reviews, escalations, and long-term partnership planning
Lead contract manufacturing capacity planning
Negotiate product costing, manufacturing value add, NRE, CapEx, tooling, payment terms, warranty, and capacity commitments
Lead contract manufacturing (CM/JDM) engagement process, which includes RFQ/RFP processes, contracting (MSA/SOW/SLA/etc.), and cost negotiations
Drive supplier performance across cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, yield, capacity, and responsiveness
Partner with engineering, manufacturing, test, and quality teams to ensure factory readiness for NPI and production ramps
Build cost models, lead should-cost analysis, and drive cost reduction programs
Identify and mitigate manufacturing risks related to capacity, quality, tooling, regional concentration, and supply continuity
Present supplier strategy, cost tradeoffs, capacity plans, and risks to executive leadership
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, supply chain, operations, business, or a related technical field
10+ years of experience in supply chain, manufacturing operations, sourcing, or contract manufacturing
Significant experience managing contract manufacturers for complex hardware products
Experience with PCBAs, systems, servers, networking, compute, datacenter infrastructure, or similar hardware platforms
Proven ability to negotiate complex supplier agreements and scale global manufacturing partnerships
Strong understanding of NPI, pilot builds, production ramps, sustaining operations, factory readiness, and supplier quality
Experience building cost models, managing supplier scorecards, and driving operational improvement
Strong cross-functional leadership and executive communication skills
Ability to operate with urgency, ownership, and sound judgment in fast-moving environments
Experience managing suppliers across Asia and working across global time zones
Deep familiarity with EMS cost structures, factory operations, labor models, yield, test, and line utilization
MBA or master’s degree in engineering, operations, supply chain, or a related field
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, unlike many of our competitors. 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 as needed.
Compensation Range
$150K - $270K