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Ricursive Intelligence
AI Chip Design
Last verified August 17, 2026 · Updated daily
What Ricursive Intelligence is building
The chip design industry has a profound bottleneck. Building a single advanced semiconductor, takes teams of hundreds of engineers, 12-18 months of iterative design work, and anywhere from $100M to $650M in engineering labour. The finished chip is already outdated by the time it ships, because AI models have moved on. Ricursive's insight is structurally simple and staggeringly ambitious: use AI to design the chips that train better AI, then use those better chips to design even smarter AI. A recursive loop; hence the name. Their co-founders Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini proved this was possible at Google with AlphaChip, which compressed chip layout design from multiple months to just a few hours using deep reinforcement learning, and has been baked into multiple generations of Google's TPUs, including v5e, v5p, and the 6th generation Trillium. Ricursive is building a full-stack platform that handles every phase of chip creation - from placement, routing, verification, and architecture search, to using AI agents that get smarter with every chip they design.
Why this matters
The semiconductor industry is a $600B+ market, and it is structurally stuck. The dominant or the 'Big Three', EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tooling vendors, Cadence, Synopsys, Siemens EDA, have barely changed their software paradigm in 30 years. Human engineers are still the bottleneck. AI cannot advance faster than the hardware it runs on, and hardware cannot advance faster than humans can design it. Ricursive attacks that constraint at its root. If their platform delivers even 10x improvement in design throughput, it doesn't just make existing chips cheaper, it makes custom, purpose-built chips (for robotics, drugs, climate, medicine) economically viable for companies that could never afford bespoke silicon before. The downstream effect on the entire AI industry is difficult to overstate. Medicine: Drug discovery today is constrained not just by biology but by compute. Training a protein-folding model or running a molecular dynamics simulation requires months of GPU time on hardware that was designed for general AI workloads, not biochemistry. A purpose-built chip for protein simulation - optimised for the specific mathematical operations that dominate that workload - could cut that timeline by an order of magnitude. The bottleneck preventing its existence has always been cost: a bespoke chip costs $100M+ to design and fabricate. Ricursive's platform, if it works, brings that cost into range for a well-funded biotech, not just a hyperscaler. Climate and energy: Power grid optimisation, weather modelling, and carbon capture simulation are all compute-bound problems that run on chips designed for advertising inference and image generation. The mismatch is enormous. A custom chip for climate simulation would process fluid dynamics calculations - the mathematical core of weather and grid modelling - far more efficiently than anything currently available. The reason it doesn't exist is the same: design cost. Ricursive changes that equation. Robotics: The physical intelligence problem, giving robots the ability to sense, plan, and act in unstructured environments, requires real-time inference at extremely low power budgets. A robot arm running on a GPU draws too much power and generates too much heat. The robotics industry has been waiting for purpose-built inference chips for years; Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and a dozen startups are all trying to solve it. Ricursive's platform, in theory, could compress the design cycle for exactly these chips from 18 months to weeks. The compounding effect is the thing to understand. Faster chip design → better chips → faster AI → better chip design tools → faster chip design again. This is the loop Ricursive is trying to own. It's not a product company in the traditional sense - it's a bid to own the recursive feedback mechanism at the centre of the entire AI economy. That's why Lightspeed and Sequoia invested at a $4B valuation into a company with no product and four months of existence. They're not betting on a tool. They're betting on a new law of the industry.
Open roles at Ricursive Intelligence
5 positions we're tracking. Roles are re-checked daily and removed when filled.
LLM Infra Engineer
First seen 4 months ago
EDA Algorithm Engineer
First seen 4 months ago
LLM Modeling & Scaling Researcher
First seen 4 months ago
Founding Security Engineer
First seen 4 months ago
Operations
First seen 4 months ago
Know when Ricursive Intelligence is hiring before anyone else
A role stays uncontested for about four days. Here's the window — and where we put you in it.
From $9/month, cancel any time.
Watching Ricursive Intelligence
0 applicantsRole spotted & verified
1You get the alert
1You've applied
~8Hits the job boards
250+Hiring outlook
$335M raised in 4 months, scaling fast
Working at Ricursive Intelligence
Since , Ricursive Intelligence has built AI Chip Design. The team is now people. For a AI company this size, the reality is opportunity to shape your role based on the company stage.
Most openings are based out of San Francisco.
How to actually get hired at Ricursive Intelligence
Why applying the normal way doesn't work
Ricursive Intelligence runs an applicant tracking system, but hiring managers still work referrals first. A cold application to Ricursive Intelligence isn't dead, it's just fourth in line behind internal referrals, sourced candidates and recruiter pipelines.
Who to contact at Ricursive Intelligence
Contact route not yet verified for Ricursive Intelligence. For a -person AI company, expect the hiring manager to make the call — but this is a model, not confirmed data.
What Ricursive Intelligence screens for
The Ricursive team pulled its first hires directly from AlphaChip colleagues - Ebrahim Songhori and Jiwoo Pak all came over from Google. The most effective non-research route in right now is reaching out to these early employees on LinkedIn, engaging with their public posts (Ebrahim in particular posts about the technical work), and podcasts and demonstrating that you understand what they're building at the implementation level. The employee to watch is Azalia Mirhoseini (CTO), she is arguably the most technically rigorous of the two founders and leads hiring for research roles. Her Google Scholar page lists her key interests and co-authors, which is a roadmap to what she values in candidates.
A tailored CV beats a generic one. Use Ricursive Intelligence's job description language to clear filters.
Don't make these mistakes
Do not lead with 'I love what you're building.' Lead with a technical observation or question. Example opener: 'I've been following the debate around AlphaChip's pre-training methodology since the CACM paper, curious how Ricursive's architecture handles the transfer learning problem across heterogeneous chip topologies.' That sentence shows you've read the controversy, understand the architecture, and are thinking about what comes next.
Mistakes that kill Ricursive Intelligence applications
Generic CVs stand out at a -person company — and not in a good way. Fastest path to rejection.
Skip 'I'm looking for...' — start with The semiconductor industry is a $600B+ market, and it is structurally stuck and your specific angle on solving it.
Applying and waiting = silence. Follow up at day five — it roughly doubles your odds of a reply.
Applying to Ricursive Intelligence? Get the contact, not the form.
The Ricursive Intelligence interview process
4 stages · 14 days typical · take-home: yes · modelled from similar companies
We don't yet have verified candidate reports for Ricursive Intelligence. What follows is the typical process for a -person AI company — treat it as a model, not confirmed detail.
Interview stages
Recruiter Screen
Phone or video · 30 min
Basic qualification and logistics
Recruiter or HR
Hiring Manager Interview
Video call · 45 min
Role fit and experience deep-dive
Hiring manager
Technical/Functional Round
Video call · 60 min
Skills assessment and problem-solving
Team members
Final Round
In-person or video · 60 min
Culture fit and cross-functional alignment
Senior leadership
Ricursive Intelligence take-home assignment
Ricursive Intelligence includes a take-home exercise in their interview process. For AI roles, this typically involves a practical problem that takes 2-4 hours. Focus on clean, working code over premature optimization. They're evaluating how you think and communicate, not just the solution.
Ricursive Intelligence interview timeline
Expect days total. Compared to similar AI companies (14 days median), Ricursive Intelligence is about average.
Interviewed at Ricursive Intelligence?
Tell us how it went — stages, questions, timeline. Takes 90 seconds and it's how this page stays accurate for the next person.
Submit your Ricursive Intelligence interview experience →Ricursive Intelligence jobs, frequently asked questions
How many jobs does Ricursive Intelligence have open?
As of February 2025, Ricursive Intelligence has 5 open positions.
Does Ricursive Intelligence hire remotely?
No remote roles right now — all positions are in San Francisco.
What roles is Ricursive Intelligence hiring for?
Ricursive Intelligence is hiring across Engineering, Other, Operations. The most recent opening is LLM Infra Engineer.
How do I apply for a job at Ricursive Intelligence?
Apply via the links above. For tips, read our guide on how to get hired at Ricursive Intelligence.
Does Ricursive Intelligence respond to cold emails?
Response rate data for Ricursive Intelligence not yet confirmed.
Who is the hiring manager at Ricursive Intelligence?
At this size, hiring is usually run by the hiring manager.
How competitive is it to get hired at Ricursive Intelligence?
Expect 100-250 applicants in the first two weeks for AI roles at this size. Apply within 72 hours for best odds.
How many rounds is the Ricursive Intelligence interview?
4 stages: Recruiter Screen, Hiring Manager Interview, Technical/Functional Round, Final Round.
Is the Ricursive Intelligence interview hard?
Expect technical depth and system design, not algorithm trivia. Candidates report Technical Interview as the toughest stage.
Does Ricursive Intelligence give a take-home task?
Yes, Ricursive Intelligence includes a take-home assignment.
How long does Ricursive Intelligence take to get back to you?
Around 14 days across the full process.
What should I prepare for the Ricursive Intelligence interview?
technical depth and system design is the priority. Show you can work autonomously — that matters more than algorithms at people.
Where is Ricursive Intelligence based?
Ricursive Intelligence is headquartered in San Francisco.
Get Ricursive Intelligence roles before they're posted
A role stays uncontested for about four days. Here's the window — and where we put you in it.
From $9/month, cancel any time.
Watching Ricursive Intelligence
0 applicantsRole spotted & verified
1You get the alert
1You've applied
~8Hits the job boards
250+