Performance Tools Intern

Etched is hiring a Performance Tools Intern in San Jose, United States. Level rates it ; you can apply on Etched.

Level's read on this job

Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this role: the job is building AI systems.
Tools and skills the posting cites include C, Rust and Python.
Level classifies it as an internship.
Level lists 114 other open roles at Etched.

AI in this role

Build performance analysis and profiling infrastructure for custom ML accelerators to optimize frontier AI workloads.

CRustPython

computer-architectureperformance-analysisprofilinghardware-acceleration

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

Join our team and take the lead in illuminating the performance landscape of our cutting-edge ML accelerator. We are seeking a highly skilled engineer to design and develop a sophisticated performance analysis tool, tailored specifically for our hardware. You will be instrumental in creating the essential tooling that enables our ML engineers and customers to understand workload behavior, identify performance bottlenecks, and unlock the full potential of our hardware, accelerating the most demanding ML applications in the world. This is a unique opportunity to shape performance analysis for novel hardware from the ground up.

During your internship, you may:

Build components of our performance analysis and profiling infrastructure.
Collect and analyze performance data from our custom ML accelerators, including hardware counters, execution traces, and memory behavior.
Develop tooling to trace host-side runtime activity, system behavior, and accelerator execution.
Help correlate performance events across CPUs, accelerators, storage, networking, and distributed workloads.
Build analysis and visualization tools that help engineers identify performance bottlenecks and optimize models.
Work alongside hardware, compiler, firmware, and inference engineers to understand performance challenges and develop tools that improve developer productivity.

Representative projects

Implement the data collection framework for hardware performance counters on a custom PCIe-based accelerator.
Develop a user-space service for low-overhead tracing of accelerator activity.
Design and build a correlated timeline view visualizing CPU API calls, driver submissions, PCIe transfers, and accelerator execution units.
Create an analysis pass to detect and quantify memory access inefficiencies or PCIe bandwidth saturation while transacting on a PCIe-attached accelerator.

You may be a good fit if you have

Strong programming skills in C++ or Rust. Experience with Python is a plus.
Solid understanding of computer architecture, including CPUs, GPUs or AI accelerators, memory hierarchies, and parallel programming.
Experience or strong interest in low-level performance analysis, profiling, and performance optimization.
Familiarity with performance analysis tools such as Nsight, VTune, Xprof, Perfetto, or similar tools is a plus.
Experience or strong interest in operating systems, compilers, firmware, drivers, or other low-level systems software.
Passion for understanding how complex systems behave under real workloads and building tools that help other engineers optimize performance.
Strong problem-solving skills and curiosity to learn quickly in a fast-paced engineering environment.

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

Direct experience developing performance analysis or debugging tools.
Experience with ML accelerator architectures (GPUs, TPUs, etc.).
Experience with kernel-mode driver development (Linux or Windows).

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system. 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.

How we rate this

Performance Tools Intern at Etched rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Key facts

Performance Tools Intern is an open job at Etched.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The role is based in San Jose.
The job was posted on August 3, 2026.
Seniority: intern.
Applications are handled by Etched. Apply on Etched

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Computer ArchitecturePerformance AnalysisProfilingHardware AccelerationCRustPython

Questions you could be asked

Tell me about a project where computer architecture was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where performance analysis was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where profiling was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where hardware acceleration was part of your work. What did you do?
Walk me through how you've used C in your day-to-day work.

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Computer Architecture, Performance Analysis, Profiling, Hardware Acceleration, and C. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

Get your CV reviewed before you apply

Send your CV and the role you want next. Your review arrives by email within 3 days.

Get a free CV review Check your resume with the ATS resume checker