Junior Performance Software Engineer

OPENCHIP & SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGIES; Limerick; On-site; EUR 52,000 - 68,000; Full time

Job summary

Openchip & Software Technologies S.L. in Ireland is seeking a Junior Performance Software Engineer to join the performance team.

You will optimize AI and HPC workloads on our RISC‑V platform and contribute to benchmarks to deliver top-tier performance, working closely with customers to tune their workloads. You will profile systems end-to-end, from CPU and memory to I/O and power, and collaborate with hardware, compiler, and software teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor or Master’s degree in a relevant field.
• 1-3 years of experience in performance optimization.
• Strong knowledge of computer architecture (CPU, memory hierarchy).
• Proven experience with profiling tools (Linux perf, VTUNE, flamegraphs, etc.).
• Proficiency in low-level languages (C, C++, Rust).
• Experience with performance benchmarks (SPEC, LINPACK, STREAM).
• Experience with emulators/simulators (Qemu, Gem5, Spike).
• Experience with containers (Docker, Kubernetes) and CI/CD.
• GIT/Jira for version control and task tracking.
• Open source development experience.

Responsibilities

• Optimize AI and HPC workloads for our RISC‑V silicon.
• Profile performance across CPU, memory, and power.
• Identify bottlenecks and implement solutions.
• Collaborate with hardware, compiler, and firmware teams.
• Contribute upstream where appropriate.
• Present findings to senior technical leaders and at conferences.

Skills

Performance optimization

Computer architecture

C/C++/Rust

Profiling tools

Assembly language

Performance benchmarks

Emulators and simulators

Docker/Kubernetes

CI/CD & Git/Jira

Open source development

Education

Bachelor or Master’s degree in a relevant field

Tools

Linux perf

iperf

lmbench

sysbench

flamegraphs

JMeter

Intel VTUNE

Qemu

Gem5

Spike

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

The Role

Openchip is building exciting new RISC‑V chips with AI and HPC acceleration. As a Junior Perfomance Software Engineer, you will actively participate in our performance team, helping to optimize popular AI and HPC applications and benchmarks to deliver best in class performance, and work with customers to optimize their workloads.

Key Responsibilities

• Make independent technical contributions to help their team deliver its commitments. In particular:
• Optimize AI, HPC, and other workloads and benchmarks for our RISC‑V silicon with vector extensions.
• Identify bottlenecks with workload characterization and drive implementation of solutions.
• Decompose applications and how they run on the underlying hardware.
• Understand performance at a system level, from CPU, memory, storage, power utilization, etc.
• Profile and optimize on our pre‑silicon (simulators, emulators, FPGAS), and silicon environments.
• Troubleshoot and root cause analysis, to resolve performance issues.
• Optimize HPC and AI libraries and runtimes.
• Work with customers to optimize their important workloads for our architecture.
• Contribute to instrumentation of performance and power at the operating system level.
• Integrate with CI/CD to automate performance benchmarking.
• Present findings to senior technical leaders at our company and at industry conferences.
• Contribute upstream where appropriate.
• Interact with colleagues across projects to unblock issues, or to reach consensus on technical topics. In particular:
• Work with hardware teams, influencing hardware/software co-design.
• Work with teams developing compilers, firmware, AI stacks, middleware, etc., and contribute as necessary.
• Collaborate with colleagues through code reviews, bug triaging, design documents,...
• Contribute to shared team responsibilities (CI failure triaging, documentation, code fixits, rotations... ).

Qualifications

• Bachelor or Master’s degree in a relevant field.
• Experience in the relevant field (1-3yr).
• Solid knowledge about computer architecture (CPU, cache, memory hierarchy, buses, etc.).
• Proven experience with performance optimizaiton, and experience with performance profiling and analysis tools (Linux perf, iperf, lmbench, sysbench, flamegraphs, JMeter, LoadRunner, Gatling, Intel (R) VTUNE, ARM SPE, etc.).
• Solid knowledge of low‑level development languages (C, C++, Rust, etc.).
• Experience with assembly language (any architecture).
• Experience with performance benchmarks (CoreMark, FPMark, LMBench, Stream, SPEC CPU, SPEC INT, graph500, CORAL, HPGMG, CoMD, Linpack, SuiteSparse Matrix Collection, MLPERF, ResNet, BERT etc.).
• Solid understanding of operating systems, databases, networking, and cloud technologies.
• Strong problem‑solving skills with the ability to troubleshoot and identify complex issues.
• Experience with bare metal (without OS) development for embedded systems and microcontrollers.
• Experience with standard tools for source control (git), continuous integration, task management (Jira).
• Experience with machine learning and/or HPC performance optimization.
• Experience with Fortran.
• Experience with RISC-V development at the assembly‑language level.
• Experience with statistical analysis.
• Experience with emulators and simulators (Qemu, Gem5, Spike).
• Experience in containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience with hypervisor technology (KVM, Xen).
• Experience with open source software development.

Soft Skills

• Team player: communicative and collaborative person who focuses on the outcome of the team above the individual needs.
• Curious about learning new technologies/stacks.
• Capable of within- and cross-team collaboration at the technical level.
• Can-do attitude, proactive and willing to step up and resolve any obstacle. Self-aware, self‑starter, and self‑motivated.

We are looking for outstanding people willing to join our mission to change this industry and help to build a better world.

At Openchip & Software Technologies S.L., we believe a diverse and inclusive team is the key to groundbreaking ideas. We foster a work environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered to reach their full potential – regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.