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Lightning AI · 2 months ago

AI Performance Optimization Engineer

San Francisco, CA

Full-time

Hybrid

Mid, Senior Level

$120K/yr - $250K/yr

Lightning AI is a company focused on simplifying AI development for both commercial and academic purposes. They are seeking a highly skilled AI Optimization Engineer to optimize training and inference workloads, working on the Lightning Thunder compiler and the broader PyTorch Lightning ecosystem.

Computer VisionInformation TechnologyMachine LearningNatural Language ProcessingSoftware

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Develop performance-oriented model optimizations at multiple levels:

Graph-level (e.g., operator fusion, kernel scheduling, memory planning)

Kernel-level (CUDA, Triton, custom operators for specialized hardware)

System-level (distributed training across GPUs/TPUs, inference serving at scale)

Advance the Thunder compiler by building optimization passes, graph transformations, and integration hooks to accelerate training and inference workloads

Work across the software stack to ensure optimizations are accessible to end users through clean APIs, automated tooling, and seamless integration with PyTorch Lightning

Design and implement profiling and debugging tools to analyze model execution, identify bottlenecks, and guide optimization strategies

Collaborate with hardware vendors and ecosystem partners to ensure Thunder runs efficiently across diverse backends (NVIDIA, AMD, TPU, specialized accelerators)

Contribute to open-source projects by developing new features, improving documentation, and supporting community adoption

Engage with researchers and engineers in the community, providing guidance on performance tuning and advocating for Thunder as the go-to optimization layer in ML workflows

Work cross-functionally with Lightning's product and engineering teams to ensure compiler and optimization improvements align with the broader product vision

Qualification

PyTorchCUDAModel optimizationDeep learning frameworksDistributed systemsCompiler internalsOpen-source contributionsSoftware engineering practicesCollaboration skillsCommunication skills

Required

Strong expertise with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow

Hands-on experience with model optimization techniques, including graph-level optimizations, quantization, pruning, mixed precision, or memory-efficient training

Deep understanding of compiler internals (IR design, operator fusion, scheduling, optimization passes) or proven work in performance-critical software

Experience with CUDA, Triton, or other GPU programming models for developing custom kernels

Knowledge of distributed systems and parallelism strategies (data/model/pipeline parallelism, checkpointing, elastic scaling)

Familiarity with software engineering practices: designing APIs, building robust tooling, testing, CI/CD for performance-sensitive systems

Proven track record contributing to open-source projects in ML, HPC, or compiler domains

Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to partner across research, engineering, and external contributors

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Preferred

Advanced degree (Master's or PhD) in machine learning, compilers, or systems highly preferred

Benefits

Medical, dental and vision

Life and AD&D insurance

Flexible paid time off including winter closure

Generous paid family leave benefits

$500 monthly meal reimbursement, including groceries & food delivery services

$500 one time home office stipend

$1,000 annual learning & development stipend

100% Citibike membership (NYC only)

$45/month gym membership

Additional various medical and mental health services

Company

Lightning AI

The AI development platform - From idea to AI, Lightning fast ⚡️. Code together. Prototype. Train on GPUs. Scale. Serve.

Founded in 2019

New York, New York, USA

11-50 employees

https://www.pytorchlightning.ai

H1B Sponsorship

Lightning AI has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2023 (2)

2021 (1)