Software Engineer, AI Infrastructure

New York, San Mateo

About the role

About Us:

At Fireworks, we’re building the future of generative AI infrastructure. Our platform delivers the highest-quality models with the fastest and most scalable inference in the industry. We’ve been independently benchmarked as the leader in LLM inference speed and are driving cutting-edge innovation through projects like our own function calling and multimodal models. Fireworks is a Series C company valued at $4 billion and backed by top investors including Benchmark, Sequoia, Lightspeed, Index, and Evantic. We’re an ambitious, collaborative team of builders, founded by veterans of Meta PyTorch and Google Vertex AI.

The Role:

As a Software Engineer on our AI Infrastructure team, you will help design the core systems that power Fireworks AI’s generative AI platform. You will help build infrastructure and tools that ensure the reliability, performance, quality, and availability of our AI system.

Our mission is to make Fireworks AI the most reliable and user friendly generative AI platform in the world. You will partner closely with our cloud infrastructure team, product team, and performance team to deliver infrastructure that bridges the gap between our customer and the ultra-performant proprietary Fireworks inference engine.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Contribute to the design and development of scalable backend infrastructure that supports distributed training, inference, and data pipelines
  • Build and maintain core backend services such as LLM CI/CD pipeline, control plane, and model serving systems
  • Support performance optimization, cost efficiency, and reliability improvements across compute, storage, and networking layers
  • Building frameworks and safeguards to ensure Fireworks AI has the best model quality in the industry
  • Collaborate with performance, training, and product teams to translate research and product needs into infrastructure solutions
  • Participate in code reviews, technical discussions, and continuous integration and deployment processes

Minimum Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience)
  • 3 years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on infrastructure or machine learning systems
  • Strong programming skills in Python, Go, or a similar language
  • Proven experience in ML infrastructure and tooling (e.g., PyTorch, MLflow, Vertex AI, SageMaker, Kubernetes, etc.).
  • Basic understanding of LLM knowledge (e.g., context length, disaggregated prefill, KV cache memory estimation, etc)

Preferred Qualifications:

  • 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on infrastructure or machine learning systems
  • Experience with open source inference engine like vLLM, Sglang, or TRT-LLM
  • Contributions to open-source infrastructure or ML projects
  • Experience in building large scale ML/MLOps infrastructure

Total compensation for this role also includes meaningful equity in a fast-growing startup, along with a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package. Base salary is determined by a range of factors including individual qualifications, experience, skills, interview performance, market data, and work location. The listed salary range is intended as a guideline and may be adjusted.

Base Pay Range (Plus Equity)$175,000$220,000 USD

Why Fireworks AI?

  • Solve Hard Problems: Tackle challenges at the forefront of AI infrastructure, from low-latency inference to scalable model serving.
  • Build What’s Next: Work with bleeding-edge technology that impacts how businesses and developers harness AI globally.
  • Ownership & Impact: Join a fast-growing, passionate team where your work directly shapes the future of AI—no bureaucracy, just results.
  • Learn from the Best: Collaborate with world-class engineers and AI researchers who thrive on curiosity and innovation.

Fireworks AI is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all innovators.

About Fireworks AI

Fireworks is the fastest way to build, tune, and scale AI on open models. Ship production-ready AI in seconds on our globally distributed cloud infrastructure, optimized for your use case. Fireworks powers production workloads at companies like Uber, Doordash, Notion, and Cursor—delivering 15× faster speed, 4× lower latency, and 4× more concurrency than closed models.

Other roles at Fireworks AI

Interested?

Let me introduce you to the founders.

Skip the process

Job details

Salary

$140,000 - $205,000

Location

New York, San Mateo

Experience

3+ years

Company

NameFireworks AI
Industryai, software_development, devtools, data, b2b, api_sdk
Team Size211

Funding

Total raised

$327M

Last stage

Series C

Investors

Sequoia Capital
Benchmark
Lightspeed Venture Partners
Index Ventures
NVIDIA

Founders

BC

Benny Chen

Co-Founder

Benny Yufei Chen

Benny Yufei Chen

Co-Founder

LinkedIn
Lin Qiao

Lin Qiao

CEO and cofounder

LinkedIn
DD

Dmytro Dzhulgakov

CTO, Co-Founder

LinkedIn

What happens next.

No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.

01

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

02

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

03

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.