Staff Software Engineer - GenAI inference

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Benefits Diversity Engineering Research Students & new grads Back to search results Staff Software Engineer - GenAI inference San Francisco, California Apply now P-1285 About This Role As a staff software engineer for GenAI inference, you will lead the architecture, development, and optimization of the inference engine that powers Databricks Foundation Model API.. You’ll bridge research advances and production demands, ensuring high throughput, low latency, and robust scaling. Your work will encompass the full GenAI inference stack: kernels, runtimes, orchestration, memory, and integration with frameworks and orchestration systems. What You Will Do Own and drive the architecture, design, and implementation of the inference engine, and collaborate on model-serving stack optimized for large-scale LLMs inference Partner closely with researchers to bring new model architectures or features (sparsity, activation compression, mixture-of-experts) into the engine Lead the end-to-end optimization for latency, throughput, memory efficiency, and hardware utilization across GPUs, and accelerators Define and guide standards to build and maintain instrumentation, profiling, and tracing tooling to uncover bottlenecks and guide optimizations Architect scalable routing, batching, scheduling, memory management, and dynamic loading mechanisms for inference workloads Ensure reliability, reproducibility, and fault tolerance in the inference pipelines, including A/B launches, rollback, and model versioning Collaborate cross-functionally on Integrating with federated, distributed inference infrastructure – orchestrate across nodes, balance load, handle communication overhead Drive cross-team collaboration: with platform engineers, cloud infrastructure, and security/compliance teams Represent

the team externally through benchmarks, whitepapers, and open-source contributions What We Look For BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, or a related field Strong software engineering background (6+ years or equivalent) in performance-critical systems Proven track record of owning complex system components and driving architectural decisions end-to-end Deep understanding of ML inference internals: attention, MLPs, recurrent modules, quantization, sparse operations, etc. Hands-on experience with CUDA, GPU programming, and key libraries (cuBLAS, cuDNN, NCCL, etc.) Strong background in distributed systems design, including RPC frameworks, queuing, RPC batching, sharding, memory partitioning Demonstrated ability to uncover and solve performance bottlenecks across layers (kernel, memory, networking, scheduler) Experience building instrumentation, tracing, and profiling tools for ML models Ability to lead through influence - work closely with ML researchers, translate novel model ideas into production systems Excellent communication and leadership skills, with a proactive and ownership-driven mindset

Bonus: published research or open-source contributions in ML systems, inference optimization, or model serving Pay Range Transparency Databricks is committed to fair and equitable

compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual

compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total

compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance

bonus, equity, and the

benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here . Local Pay Range $190,900 — $232,800 USD About Databricks Databricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark™, Delta Lake and MLflow. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter , LinkedIn and Facebook .

Benefits At Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive

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perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the

benefits offered in your region click here . Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion At Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics. Compliance If access to export-controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone. Why Databricks Discover For App Developers For Executives For Startups Lakehouse Architecture Databricks AI Research Customers Customer Stories Partners Partner Overview Partner Program Find a Partner Partner Spotlight Cloud Providers Partner Solutions Why Databricks Discover For App Developers For Executives For Startups Lakehouse Architecture Databricks AI Research Customers Customer Stories Partners Partner Overview Partner Program Find a Partner Partner Spotlight Cloud Providers Partner Solutions Product Databricks Platform Platform Overview Sharing Governance Artificial Intelligence Business Intelligence Database Data Management Data Warehousing Data Engineering Business Productivity Application Development Security Pricing Pricing Overview Pricing Calculator Open Source Integrations and Data Marketplace IDE Integrations Partner Connect Product Databricks Platform Platform Overview Sharing Governance Artificial Intelligence Business Intelligence Database Data Management Data Warehousing Data Engineering Business Productivity Application Development Security Pricing Pricing Overview Pricing Calculator Open Source Integrations and Data Marketplace IDE Integrations Partner Connect Solutions Databricks For Industries Communications Financial Services Healthcare and Life Sciences Manufacturing Media and Entertainment Public Sector Retail View All Cross Industry Solutions AI Agents AI Governance Cybersecurity Marketing Data Migration Professional Services Solution Accelerators Solutions Databricks For Industries Communications Financial Services Healthcare and Life Sciences Manufacturing Media and Entertainment Public Sector Retail View All Cross Industry Solutions AI Agents AI Governance Cybersecurity Marketing Data Migration Professional Services Solution Accelerators Resources Documentation Customer Support Community Learning Training Certification Free Edition University Alliance Databricks Academy Login Events Data + AI Summit Data + AI World Tour AI Days Event Calendar Blog and Podcasts Databricks Blog AI Blog Data Brew Podcast Champions of Data & AI Podcast Resources Documentation Customer Support Community Learning Training Certification Free Edition University Alliance Databricks Academy Login Events Data + AI Summit Data + AI World Tour AI Days Event Calendar Blog and Podcasts Databricks Blog AI Blog Data Brew Podcast Champions of Data & AI Podcast About Company

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