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Lightning AI · 1 month ago

AI Performance Optimization Team Lead

San Francisco, California, United States

Full-time

Hybrid

Lead/Staff

$225K/yr - $275K/yr

Lightning AI is a company reimagining the way AI is built, focusing on simplifying AI development for users ranging from solo researchers to large enterprises. They are seeking a highly skilled AI Optimization Leader to optimize training and inference workloads, directly influencing customer success and scaling optimization-centric offerings.

Computer VisionInformation TechnologyMachine LearningNatural Language ProcessingSoftware

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

Own the technical direction of our performance-oriented model optimization efforts 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, inference serving at scale)

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

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

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 workloads run 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 the Lightning stack as the go-to optimization stack 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

Deep learning frameworksModel optimization techniquesCompiler internalsCUDA programmingDistributed computingSoftware engineering practicesOpen-source contributionsBachelor's degreeAdvanced degreeCollaboration skillsCommunication skills

Required

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

Hands-on experience in profiling models on hardware accelerators, interpreting and identifying bottlenecks, recognizing the effects of changes

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 computing 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 the AI, scientific computing, 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)