AI Infra Staff Researcher

Lenovo Inc.; Morrisville; Hybrid; CAD 238,000 - 322,000; Full time

Job summary

Lenovo is seeking a Staff Researcher in AI Compute and Data Infrastructure to drive applied research and hands-on development for intelligent, efficient Hybrid AI systems. You will own substantial research workstreams, build production-quality software, and optimize across GPUs, CPUs, and data pipelines in a collaborative environment.

The role spans AI algorithms, distributed computing, and system software, with mentorship to junior engineers and potential patents/publications.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/AI/EE or related field.
• 3+ years in AI compute, data infrastructure, ML systems, or related software.
• Strong programming in Python, C++, Java, Go, Rust, or Scala.
• Ability to design, test, debug, profile, and optimize reliable software systems.
• Experience with system profiling, telemetry analytics, observability, performance diagnosis, or failure analysis.
• Expertise in at least two areas from ML/DL, GPU optimization, distributed training/inference, large-scale data processing, hardware/software co-optimization, time-series, reliability, causal inference, or knowledge graphs.

Responsibilities

• Research and develop AI compute and data infrastructure for distributed AI systems.
• Design and implement production-quality software, services, APIs, and data pipelines.
• Characterize AI workloads using profiling, telemetry, and benchmarks.
• Diagnose bottlenecks across GPUs, CPUs, memory, storage, networking, and AI frameworks.
• Develop co-optimization solutions for GPU utilization and resource allocation.
• Improve data ingestion, preprocessing, storage, and delivery for AI workloads.
• Build intelligent infrastructure diagnostics and predictive maintenance.
• Develop fault-tolerance, checkpointing, and automated remediation.
• Apply ML/DL, time-series, and causal inference to optimization and decision-making.
• Collaborate with hardware, software, architecture, and product teams to transition research to products.

Skills

Python

C++

Java

Go

Rust

Scala

System profiling

Observability

Performance diagnosis

Distributed systems

Machine learning

Education

Bachelors in CS/CE/AI/EE

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

JAX

CUDA

ROCm

Spark

Flink

Ray

Kafka

Kubernetes

Job description

* United States of America - North Carolina - Morrisville

Why Work at Lenovo

We are Lenovo. We do what we say. We own what we do. We WOW our customers.

Lenovo is a US$83 billion revenue global technology powerhouse, ranked #153 in the Fortune Global 500, and serving millions of customers every day in 180 markets. Focused on a bold vision to deliver Smarter Technology for All, Lenovo has built on its success as the world’s largest PC company with a full-stack portfolio of AI-enabled, AI-ready, and AI-optimized devices (PCs, workstations, smartphones, tablets), infrastructure (server, storage, edge, high performance computing and software defined infrastructure), software, solutions, and services. Lenovo’s continued investment in world-changing innovation is building a more equitable, trustworthy, and smarter future for everyone, everywhere. Lenovo is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange under Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY).

This transformation together with Lenovo’s world-changing innovation is building a more inclusive, trustworthy, and smarter future for everyone, everywhere. To find out more visit www.lenovo.com , and read about the latest news via our StoryHub .

Description and Requirements

*Please Note* This is a hybrid role in Morrisville, NC,or Palo Alto, CA.This candidate will be required to work onsite three days a week.

This candidate MUST be a US citizen or US national; US permanent residents or candidates requiring sponsorship cannot be considered.

Position Overview

The Staff Researcher in AI Compute and Data Infrastructure will conduct applied research and hands-on development for intelligent, efficient, and resilient Hybrid AI systems. This position works across AI algorithms, computer systems, distributed computing, and data infrastructure to address performance, scalability, reliability, and energy-efficiency challenges.

The successful candidate will independently own substantial research and development workstreams, build production-quality software, characterize AI workloads, diagnose infrastructure issues, and develop cross-layer optimization technologies spanning GPUs and other accelerators, CPUs, memory, storage, networking, system software, data pipelines, and AI frameworks.

Key Responsibilities

• Research and develop technologies for AI compute and data infrastructure, distributed AI systems, and intelligent infrastructure management.
• Design and implement production-quality software, system components, services, APIs, diagnostic tools, and scalable data-processing pipelines.
• Characterize AI training, inference, and data-processing workloads using profiling, tracing, benchmarking, telemetry, logs, and hardware performance counters.
• Diagnose performance bottlenecks and reliability issues across GPUs, accelerators, CPUs, memory hierarchy, storage, networking, operating systems, runtimes, and AI frameworks.
• Develop hardware/software co-optimization solutions for GPU utilization, workload scheduling, resource allocation, memory and cache management, communication, data movement, storage access, and model execution.
• Optimize large-scale data ingestion, preprocessing, transformation, storage, retrieval, and delivery for AI training, inference, and analytics workloads.
• Build intelligent infrastructure diagnostics for anomaly detection, root-cause analysis, performance regression detection, system health assessment, capacity forecasting, and predictive maintenance.
• Develop fault-tolerance and resilience mechanisms, including fault detection and isolation, checkpointing, recovery, retry, failover, graceful degradation, and automated remediation.
• Apply machine learning and deep learning to workload modeling, performance prediction, resource optimization, failure prediction, and operational decision-making.
• Apply time-series analysis and signal processing to infrastructure telemetry, event detection, change-point detection, workload forecasting, and system health monitoring.
• Apply causal inference to performance attribution, root-cause analysis, intervention evaluation, and infrastructure optimization.
• Develop knowledge graphs to model infrastructure topology, hardware/software dependencies, workloads, operational events, and failure relationships.
• Optimize systems for throughput, latency, scalability, availability, resource utilization, energy consumption, and total cost of ownership.
• Collaborate with hardware, systems, software, architecture, and product teams to transition research technologies into Enterprise AI and Personal AI products.
• Contribute to patents, invention disclosures, technical publications, internal reports, and reusable software assets.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior researchers and engineers.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Three or more years of relevant experience in AI compute and data infrastructure, machine learning systems, distributed systems, data platforms, performance engineering, reliability engineering, or advanced software development.
• Strong programming skills in Python, C++, Java, Go, Rust, Scala, or a comparable language.
• Demonstrated ability to design, implement, test, debug, profile, and optimize reliable software systems.
• Experience with system profiling, telemetry analytics, observability, performance diagnosis, or failure analysis.
• Technical expertise in at least two of the following areas:
  • Machine learning or deep learning
  • GPU or accelerator optimization
  • Distributed training or inference systems
  • Large-scale data processing
  • Hardware/software co-optimization
  • Time-series modeling or signal processing
  • Infrastructure reliability and fault tolerance
  • Causal inference
  • Knowledge graphs or graph machine learning
• Strong analytical, experimental, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, CUDA, ROCm, Spark, Flink, Ray, Kafka, Kubernetes, or related technologies.
• Experience with cloud, edge, on-premises, or hybrid AI infrastructure.
• Experience delivering research prototypes or advanced software into production environments.
• Publications, patents, open-source contributions, or demonstrated product impact.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any federal, state, or local protected class.

Additional Locations: * United States of America - North Carolina - Morrisville

If you require an accommodation to complete this application, please contact [e-mail]