Equipment Technician – SMT Process & Maintenance

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. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history.

Job Summary

We are seeking an Equipment Technician to maintain, troubleshoot, and support our Surface Mount Technology (SMT) production equipment. This hands-on role combines equipment maintenance with day-to-day process support to improve uptime, product quality, and manufacturing efficiency.

You will work closely with Production, Process Engineering, and Quality to resolve equipment issues, support product changeovers and new product introductions, and prevent recurring failures. The ideal candidate brings practical troubleshooting skills, experience with automated manufacturing equipment, and a disciplined approach to safe, reliable production.

Key Responsibilities

- Maintain SMT equipment: Perform preventive and corrective maintenance on solder paste printers, solder paste inspection (SPI) systems, pick-and-place machines, reflow ovens, automated optical inspection (AOI) systems, conveyors, and board handling equipment.

- Troubleshoot equipment failures: Diagnose and repair mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, sensor, and equipment control faults. Restore equipment safely, document root causes and corrective actions, and coordinate with suppliers or service engineers when needed.

- Manage equipment readiness: Maintain feeders, nozzles, tooling, and wear components. Perform equipment checks, adjustments, and calibration activities according to approved procedures, maintain accurate service records, and help manage critical spare parts.

- Support production setup and changeovers: Assist with line setup, first-piece verification, and new product introduction. Verify feeders, component setup, tooling, and approved machine programs before production.

- Support SMT process performance: Monitor printing, placement, and reflow performance to identify process drift and recurring defects, including insufficient solder, bridging, misalignment, tombstoning, and missing components.

- Assist with process troubleshooting: Use equipment alarms, inspection results, and production data to investigate issues and verify corrective actions. Support reflow profile verification and parameter adjustments under engineering direction, escalating changes that require approval.

- Improve equipment reliability: Support root cause investigations and identify opportunities to reduce downtime, repeat failures, changeover time, and scrap.

- Support operators and shift handovers: Train operators on routine equipment care, basic troubleshooting, and correct setup practices. Clearly communicate equipment status, completed work, and outstanding issues across shifts.

- Maintain a safe manufacturing environment: Follow electrostatic discharge (ESD) controls, lockout/tagout procedures, machine safety requirements, personal protective equipment requirements, and housekeeping standards.

You may be a good fit if you have (Must-have qualifications)

- A technical certificate, diploma, apprenticeship, or equivalent practical experience in electronics, electrical engineering, mechatronics, automation, or a related discipline.

- Hands-on experience maintaining or troubleshooting SMT equipment or comparable automated manufacturing equipment.

- Working knowledge of SMT assembly processes and common production defects.

- The ability to read equipment manuals, electrical schematics, and mechanical drawings and use diagnostic tools and test equipment effectively.

- Strong attention to detail, including the ability to follow procedures, document work accurately, and prioritize production support needs.

- Good communication skills and the ability to work independently and collaboratively with Production, Engineering, and Quality.

- The ability to perform hands-on maintenance involving standing, reaching, and accessing equipment, with reasonable accommodations as applicable, and availability for occasional overtime or weekend support.

Strong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)

- Three or more years of SMT equipment maintenance or process support.

- Equipment from Fuji, Heller, Koh Young, or Omron.

- IPC-A-610 acceptance criteria and J-STD-001 requirements.

- Maintenance management systems, root cause analysis, and equipment performance metrics.

- PLC diagnostics, servo systems, industrial networks, or machine vision.

Benefits

- Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage

- $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits

- Housing subsidy of $2,500 per month for those living within walking distance of the office

- Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)

- Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more

- Daily lunch and dinner in our office

- Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html. 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 (Santana Row), 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 and work across disciplines as needed.