RMA & Repair Lead

Job Title

RMA & Repair Lead

Role Summary

Lead the end-to-end returns and repair operation for Etched's AI hardware, from customer failure report through diagnosis, repair, supplier recovery, and warranty claims. Manage in-house depots and/or outsourced repair partners, define repair strategies, and provide technical escalation for customers and suppliers.

This is a hands-on, technical, fully in-person role based in San Jose (Santana Row).

Experience Level

Senior-level. The role expects 8+ years of experience in repair operations, RMA, or hardware support operations.

Responsibilities

Operate and scale the returns and repair function, translate manufacturing processes into repeatable repair flows, and measure and improve repair performance.

• Own the end-to-end RMA lifecycle: return authorization, triage, repair/replacement, reverse logistics, and supplier recovery/warranty claims.
• Design, build, and manage repair operations (in-house depots or outsourced partners), including capacity planning and day-to-day oversight.
• Define technical repair strategy by product level (rack, server, module, component), debug flows, failure analysis requirements, and repair-vs-scrap criteria.
• Translate NPI and manufacturing documentation into repair travelers, work instructions, tooling, test stations, and operator training/certification.
• Build and maintain repair analytics and dashboards: turnaround time, failure rates by part and failure mode, cost of service, and repeat-failure tracking.
• Define SLAs and escalation paths and serve as the technical point of contact for escalated customer issues.

Requirements

Core qualifications required to perform the role; plus common desirable skills.

• 8+ years experience in repair operations, RMA, or hardware support operations with ownership of end-to-end returns flow.
• Proven experience standing up a repair operation or selecting/managing outsourced repair partners, preferably from scratch in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong hands-on technical depth in hardware debug, board- and system-level troubleshooting, and failure analysis.
• Experience converting NPI/manufacturing process documentation into repair processes, work instructions, and test flows.
• Solid understanding of failure analysis, root cause investigation, and corrective action processes.
• Excellent communication skills for collaboration with customers, suppliers, and internal teams.
• Nice-to-have: experience with server/networking/AI hardware at rack scale; PLM/ERP systems for returns and repairs; contract manufacturer/ODM relationship management; data-driven service analytics (Pareto/FMEA, predictive maintenance); global reverse logistics; ISO or other quality system familiarity.

Education Requirements

Not specified.

About the Company

Company: Etched

Headquarters: San Jose, CA, United States

Etched develops purpose-built AI inference ASICs and systems optimized for transformer models, aiming to deliver significantly higher performance, lower cost, and lower latency than GPUs. The company focuses on enabling applications like real-time video generation and advanced reasoning agents, and is backed by leading investors and engineers.