Senior Principal Runtime Engineer

<div class="content-intro"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, delivering a full-stack inference platform for customers worldwide. At the core of SambaNova's technology is the RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) — a chip built on a dataflow architecture rather than the traditional GPU model. Its decode performance is especially strong for agentic workloads like multi-turn agents, code generation, and long-running applications. RDUs are packaged into SambaRack, rack-scale hardware that lets customers deploy state-of-the-art models with better performance, greater energy efficiency, and faster time to value.</span></p></div><h3><strong>About the role</strong></h3> <p>The Runtime Team builds a high-performance, distributed and scalable software execution environment for SambaNova SambaStack and Cloud platforms to support data-flow applications such as ML training and inference and HPC applications. We are searching for a software engineer who will work on all parts of the runtime stacks, supporting AI, ML, and scientific applications in high-performance distributed systems. You will participate in building, testing and deploying next-generation high-performance compute systems for AI applications at scale. </p> <h3><strong>Responsibilities</strong></h3> <div data-find-provider-scope=""> <div data-sizer-excess="0" data-rocksteady-sizer=""> <div data-rs-index="226" data-index="226" data-last-message="true"> <div data-test-render-count="1"> <div class="group group/message-row"> <div class="group relative relative pb-[var(--msg-assistant-pb,0.75rem)]" data-is-streaming="false"> <div class="font-claude-response relative leading-[1.65rem] [&_pre>div]:bg-bg-000/50 [&_pre>div]:border-0.5 [&_pre>div]:border-border-400 [&_.ignore-pre-bg>div]:bg-transparent [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.standard-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pl-2 [&_.progressive-markdown_:is(p,blockquote,ul,ol,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6)]:pr-8"> <div class="standard-markdown grid-cols-1 grid [&_>_*]:min-w-0 gap-3 [&_>_*:last-child]:mb-0 print:block print:[&_>_*_+_*]:mt-3 standard-markdown"> <ul> <li>New and enhanced features to support high-performance, scalable ML inference and training applications</li> <li>Drivers and kernels for next generation silicon</li> <li>Eliminate networking bottlenecks to enable high performance distributed systems</li> <li>User-space libraries for high performance and high utilization of HW resources</li> <li>User-facing tools (analysis, job and HW management, profiling, debugging, etc) for Datascale systems</li> <li>Cross-functional collaboration including Hardware, ML Application, Compiler, and DevOps</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Required Qualifications </strong></h3> <ul> <li>B.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field</li> <li>5+ years of software engineering experience, often with emphasis on distributed systems, networking, or cloud infrastructure</li> <li>Proven experience building, testing, and tuning software for distributed, high-performance systems. In-depth knowledge of user libraries, and runtime stacks</li> <li>Solid understanding of Switching and Routing and ability to configure and debug switches and routers for maximum application performance</li> <li>Significant experience with RDMA and RoCE networking stacks, such as RDMA based verbs and congestion management</li> <li>Hands-on experience with kernel drivers and system-level software that directly interfaces with hardware</li> <li>Expertise in designing and optimizing systems that handle massive parallel workloads, including machine learning training and inference tasks that involve billions of operations per second</li> <li>Deep understanding of hardware-software interaction, including registers, device memory management, and the intricacies of accelerator design. Experience working with ASIC accelerators is highly desirable</li> <li>Familiarity with distributed systems architecture, including networking, communication protocols, and the challenges of scaling compute resources efficiently</li> <li>Hands-on experience with software development tools such as Git, Jenkins, and Jira, with an ability to drive automation and continuous integration efforts</li> <li>Ability to work at the intersection of hardware and software, designing systems that optimize both performance and reliability</li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <h3><strong>Preferred Qualifications </strong></h3> <ul> <li>Experience designing or working closely with custom hardware accelerators (ASICs, FPGAs, etc.) and understanding low-level interactions</li> <li>Knowledge of SDN, DPDK, SONiC, or modern networking frameworks and background with distributed communication libraries (e.g., UCX, MPI, NCCL).</li> <li>Familiarity with deploying high-performance systems in distributed, cloud, or data center environment</li> </ul><div class="content-conclusion"><p><strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Submission Guidelines<br></span></strong><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any po