Systems Research Engineer

European Tech Recruit; Livingston; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

European Tech Recruit in Edinburgh is seeking a Systems Research Engineer to help scale AI infrastructure and redefine the foundational software stack for the LLM era.

You will tackle distributed systems bottlenecks, perform in-depth profiling of large-scale inference pipelines, and optimize AI serving frameworks to achieve low-latency, multi-tenant performance. This role offers collaboration with senior researchers and potential for publications.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/EE or related field (PhD highly preferred).
• Strong proficiency in C/C++ for systems work, with Python for rapid prototyping.
• Hands-on experience with LLM serving frameworks (vLLM, Ray Serve, TensorRT-LLM) and distributed algorithms.
• Solid grounding in systems research methodology and performance profiling tools.

Responsibilities

• Research and develop scalable distributed system components for AI infrastructure.
• Profile and optimize large-scale inference pipelines focusing on KV cache management.
• Contribute to AI serving frameworks and publish findings at top venues.
• Collaborate with senior researchers to translate ideas into production-ready solutions.

Skills

C/C++

Python

LLM serving

Distributed systems

Performance profiling

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/EE

PhD preferred

Tools

vLLM

Ray Serve

TensorRT-LLM

Job description

Systems Research Engineer | AI Infrastructure | C++ Systems Engineering

One of the largest telecommunications companies in the world is looking for an experienced researcher to join the company in Edinburgh.

The Vision

We are currently scaling a world‑class research team in Edinburgh to redefine the foundational software stack for the LLM era. As AI transitions from experimental to "agentic" and "AI‑native" infrastructure, we are building the super‑node clusters and distributed architectures that will power the next generation of global data centres.

The Technical Challenge

As a Systems Research Engineer, you will tackle the "bottleneck" problems of modern AI:

• Distributed Systems R&D: Architecting components for CPU, GPU, and NPU clusters with a focus on modularity and extreme scalability.
• Performance Engineering: In-depth profiling of large-scale inference pipelines, specifically focusing on KV cache management and heterogeneous memory scheduling.
• AI Serving: Optimising high-throughput frameworks (vLLM, Ray Serve, PyTorch Distributed) to ensure low-latency, multi-tenant performance.
• Research Leadership: Contributing to top-tier venues (OSDI, NSDI, EuroSys, MLSys) and driving those innovations into real-world production.

Who You Are

We are looking for "systems-first" thinkers—engineers who understand what happens under the hood of a cluster.

Required Experience:

• Education: A Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS, EE, or a related field (PhD highly preferred).
• The Stack: Strong proficiency in C/C++ for systems work, with Python for rapid prototyping.
• Expertise: Hands‑on experience with LLM serving frameworks (vLLM, Ray Serve, TensorRT-LLM) and distributed algorithms.
• Mindset: A solid grounding in systems research methodology and performance profiling tools.

The "Value Add" (Desired)

• A PhD focused on distributed computing or AI infrastructure.
• A track record of publications at major conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, etc.).
• Deep knowledge of load balancing, fault tolerance, and resource orchestration in massive AI clusters.

Why Join This Team

• Impact: Work on one of the largest R&D footprints globally.
• Collaboration: Partner with senior architects and global research teams to solve problems that don't have "off-the-shelf" solutions yet.
• Location: Based in the heart of Edinburgh’s thriving tech ecosystem.

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