Facility and Building Systems Project Manager

About Etched

Etched is building AI chips that are hard-coded for individual model architectures. Our first product (Sohu) only supports transformers, but has an order of magnitude more throughput and lower latency than a B200. With Etched ASICs, you can build products that would be impossible with GPUs, like real-time video generation models and extremely deep & parallel chain-of-thought reasoning agents.

Job Summary

Etched is scaling fast, and we’re building out our facility operations team to support it. This role owns the operations and maintenance side of our buildings: taking the handoff of lab and rack infrastructure from our capital projects team, running it long-term, and keeping every day-to-day service flowing, from utility billing and trash to porter, catering, and emergency response. This is a startup. We move fast, prioritize ruthlessly, and get our hands dirty. The right person walks into a building and figures out how to make it work, not someone who walks in and writes a list of everything that’s wrong.

Key responsibilities

Serve as first responder for building and critical system issues: triage, troubleshoot, and drive resolution within agreed SLAs. Develop the SLAs where they don’t exist yet.
Conduct ongoing system performance reviews and trend analysis to identify risks before they become failures.
Develop, maintain, and execute SOPs and MOPs for all critical systems.
Take handoff of lab and rack infrastructure delivered by the capital projects team, and own its long-term operation: chilled water, compressed dry air, generators, UPS, and controls.
Build and run preventative maintenance programs for all building systems: HVAC/VRF, electrical distribution, plumbing, fire/life safety, elevator, generators, chillers, and roof. Hold vendors accountable and keep the records.
Own day-to-day building services: PG&E and other utility account management and billing, trash and recycling, porter, catering coordination, janitorial, landscaping, parking lot maintenance, pest control, window cleaning, alarm/security monitoring, and emergency repair trades.
Lead utility planning and coordination, including PG&E service work, backup generator strategy, and capacity planning as the site grows.
Operate building controls and BAS day-to-day: alarms, trend analysis, and catching drift before it becomes a failure.
Keep us aligned with applicable codes, environmental requirements, and hazardous materials handling. Track permits, certificates of occupancy, and inspection cycles. Flag the things that need architect or city involvement before they become problems.
Manage light construction oversight on the ops side: smaller buildouts, tenant alterations, and retrofit work end-to-end. Partner with capital projects on larger work where systems and construction overlap.
Surrender condition planning: keep our buildings in the shape we need to hand them back in, year over year.
Budget ownership for facilities operating expenses across the portfolio.

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

5+ years of hands-on building systems management experience, ideally in an environment where you carried the full O&M load rather than calling a landlord.
Startup experience, or a clear track record of working in resource-constrained, fast-moving environments. You’re comfortable wearing multiple hats and don’t need a perfect process to get started.
A builder’s mindset. You walk into a problem and figure out how to solve it with what you have. You don’t lead with what’s wrong with the building, the budget, or the prior decisions. You lead with what you’re going to do about it.
Working knowledge of commercial HVAC/VRF, electrical distribution, plumbing, fire/life safety, and roofing systems, enough to evaluate vendor work, not just dispatch it.
Experience developing and executing SOPs and MOPs for critical systems.
Construction experience: you’ve managed contractors and subs through buildouts, retrofits, or TI work, and you know how to hold a schedule.
Experience standing up preventative maintenance programs from scratch, not just inheriting them.
Comfort with utility coordination, particularly PG&E and similar large-scale service planning, and ownership of utility billing.
Track record managing a stable of trade and soft-service vendors (janitorial, porter, catering, landscaping, trades) and holding them to quality and timeline.
Familiarity with permit processes, certificate of occupancy requirements, and California commercial real estate compliance.
Calm under pressure. Things will break at 2am. You’ll need to triage, decide whether it can wait, and get the right people moving if it can’t. Comfortable with on-call rotation.
Willing to be on-site, in the building, doing the work. This is not a desk job.

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

Direct experience operating mission-critical facilities (data center / colo, biotech / pharma, or semiconductor / high-tech fab).
Hands-on experience with chilled water (CHW), compressed dry air (CDA), and HVAC/VRF systems at the operator level.
Proficiency reading and working from MEPF and controls drawings and schematics.
NFPA 70E trained and current.
Experience with building controls / BAS platforms; Tridium / Niagara a strong plus.
Reliability testing or commissioning exposure.
Plant or facility management exposure.
Direct experience managing PG&E service requests, capacity expansions, or MV gear projects.
Operating engineering or contractor licenses (e.g., Electrical or Mechanical Journeyman, CFC Universal or Type II).
OSHA 30 trained and current.
A CFM, FMP, or similar credential.

Representative projects

Own the operational handoff of a new lab from capital projects through commissioning into long-term reliable operation.
Stand up the preventative maintenance program and vendor stack for a new site from scratch.
Lead 24/7 response to a critical infrastructure failure (e.g., overnight power loss) so the engineering teams stay productive.
Consolidate and renegotiate utility and soft-service contracts to reduce cost and improve service levels.
Build the on-call playbook and SLA framework for building and lab systems.

Benefits

Full medical, dental, and vision packages, with generous premium coverage
Housing subsidy of $2,000/month for those living within walking distance of the office
Daily lunch and dinner in our office
Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson. We think most of the progress in the AI field has come from using more FLOPs to train and run models, and the best way to get more FLOPs is to build model-specific hardware. Larger and larger training runs encourage companies to consolidate around fewer model architectures, which creates a market for single-model ASICs.

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 as needed.