About Ayo
We are a venture-backed early-stage startup developing processors specialized for machine learning. The processor will provide orders or magnitude improvement in speed and power efficiency with a goal of unseating the GPU as the dominant computing platform for AI.
The Role
We are seeking a deep AI practitioner to join as a founding team member - someone with hands-on experience working on or alongside a foundation model at scale, who understands what happens under the hood when splitting jobs across thousands of GPUs, and who is excited to bring that depth to novel hardware. They have a full-stack understanding of machine learning architectures, love to optimize algorithms across disciplinary boundaries, and will deploy and train models directly on our prototype chips to help us prove out what our processor can do - no prior hardware experience required.
What You’ll Do:
Deploy and run trained models on prototype hardware and digital twins, producing working demonstrations on our chips.
Develop and adapt algorithms to train models on novel processing environments, including our prototype hardware.
Work with hardware engineers to define and refine processor architecture based on insights learned through model training and experimentation.
Maintain a deep curiosity about what makes AI systems work - and bring that curiosity to bear on how they run on new hardware.
Support go-to-market strategy development
What We’re Looking For:
PhD in machine learning, representation learning, theory of computation, or a related field - or equivalent industry experience working on foundation models at scale.
Experience training models at scale - distributed training across many GPUs, working with large datasets and compute.
Has built and trained neural networks from scratch
Deep knowledge of the structure and internal operation of neural networks - including how and why they behave the way they do (e.g. interpretability or explainability work is a plus).
Excitement about applying deep AI expertise to new and novel hardware environments - you don’t need prior experience with photonics or silicon, but you want to learn.
Fluent knowledge of Python
Fluency in PyTorch (preferred), TensorFlow, JAX, or other industry-standard ML software libraries
Why Ayo
You'll be a founding AI team member - shaping how we think about and deploy AI as a company.
We are working on a genuinely hard and interesting problem: unseating the GPU as the dominant AI compute platform.
Early-stage means real ownership, real impact, and meaningful equity.
Competitive salary. Equity commensurate with stage and seniority. Benefits package including health, dental, and vision.
Fully onsite in Boston - we are a collaborative, in-person team.
Read LessIntroduction
Ayo is a venture-backed early-stage startup that will radically re-define how humanity performs compute for AI. Our photonic processors will provide orders of magnitude improvement in speed and power efficiency in comparison to conventional digital compute platforms by taking advantage of the natural parallelism, speed and energy efficiency of light.
We are seeking a Mixed Signal ASIC Engineer to serve as a core team member and among the first employees at Ayo. Reporting to our Lead Mixed Signal ASIC Engineer, you will play a hands-on role in designing, taping out, and testing the electronic ASICs that interface with Ayo’s photonic integrated circuits. You will work collaboratively across functions to co-design and co-package electronic ASICs with Ayo’s photonic chips, support bring-up and test, and contribute to successful demonstrations and product prototypes.
Responsibilities:
Contribute to the architecture and specification of mixed-signal ASICs that control and interface with Ayo’s photonic integrated circuits
Perform schematic capture, layout, and verification for mixed-signal integrated circuits with elements including digital-to-analog converters, analog-to-digital converters, transimpedance amplifiers, and transconductance amplifiers
Execute across the full design-to-test cycle: design, manufacture, bring-up, characterization, and validation
Support packaging and test requirements and flows for integrated circuits
Contribute to the bring-up and test of integrated circuits
Provide expertise and support to other Ayo team members
Be interested, curious, and willing to take on the full scope of ASIC development
Qualifications:
PhD in electrical engineering or equivalent industry experience
5+ years of experience designing, simulating, and testing analog and mixed signal integrated circuits
Strong fundamentals in analog and mixed signal design, including ADC/DAC, amplifiers (TIA, OTA), and related circuit blocks
Commercial tape-outs preferred; strong hands-on foundry experience required
Proficiency with standard EDA tools such as Cadence or Synopsys
Demonstrated ability to take a chip from design through manufacture, test, and validation
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience collaborating with integrated photonics teams
Experience with advanced packaging such as 2.5D / 3D integration
Contact:
Peter Russo (peter@ayosemi.com)
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