HPC Engineer

Cotidal; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Visa sponsorship

Relocation support

Medical/dental/vision

Job summary

Cotidal Limited is building the compute platform that AI teams rely on. You will own hardware systems and cluster architecture, turning workloads into scalable, reliable designs with attention to power, cost, and availability.

You’ll lead hardware selection, work with vendors, and drive improvements from design through deployment, using production data to guide the next generation.

Qualifications

• Led hardware architecture for production compute infrastructure.
• Translated workload requirements into hardware capacity plans.
• Evaluated hardware configurations with vendors and OEMs.
• Applied Linux scripting and benchmarks to diagnose issues.

Responsibilities

• Design and evaluate cluster architectures connecting accelerators, CPUs, memory, networking, and storage.
• Translate demand into hardware capacity, expansion plans, and headroom.
• Own BOMs, vendor interactions, and platform engineering approvals.
• Validate designs under representative workloads and failover scenarios.

Skills

Hardware architecture

System design

Capacity planning

Vendor engineering

Linux scripting

Performance tuning

Tools

RDMA networks

Storage architectures

Job description

Who We Are

Supercomputing built for AI.

Cotidal is building the computing infrastructure that AI companies and research labs need to train and run their models. Starting with TPUs, we design the hardware and software together around their workloads, with the goal of making powerful AI chips easier to use at scale.

Our mission is endless compute for humanity. Over time, we want customers to choose across chip stacks without rebuilding their infrastructure.

The Role

You’ll own the hardware systems and cluster architecture behind Cotidal’s compute platform. You’ll turn workload requirements into hardware specifications, capacity plans, and deployable cluster designs, making decisions across performance, reliability, power, cost, and availability.

Working directly with customers, teammates, and hardware partners, you’ll define how our systems fit together and how they scale. You’ll lead hardware selection and architectural decisions from the first design through validation and deployment, and use production evidence to improve the next generation.

What You Will Do

• Hardware Systems & Cluster Architecture: Design and evaluate the systems that connect accelerators, CPUs, memory, networking, and storage into high-performance clusters. Review vendor reference designs, validate compatibility and sizing assumptions, and define the configurations and interfaces needed for deployment. Own server configurations, rack and pod layouts, and failure domains, working with network and data-center engineers on connectivity, power, cooling, and serviceability.

• Capacity Planning & Expansion: Translate customer demand and workload profiles into hardware capacity requirements and expansion plans. Size compute, memory, storage, and network capacity; quantify usable capacity and growth headroom; and identify where bottlenecks limit the system. Work with platform, supply chain, and data-center teams to align configurations and deployment phases with delivery lead times and site readiness.

• Hardware Platforms & Vendor Engineering: Evaluate new hardware, compare configurations, and own technical specifications and engineering approval of bills of materials and substitutions. Work directly with vendors to resolve compatibility issues, close gaps against system requirements, and bring new platforms into deployment.

• Design Validation & Improvement: Own hardware design acceptance criteria and work with platform engineers to validate configurations under representative workloads and failure conditions. Investigate problems across hardware, firmware, and system interfaces. Drive corrective changes with vendors and subsystem owners, and carry lessons from deployment and operation into future designs.

What We Are Looking For

• You’ve led hardware architecture and system design for production compute infrastructure, owned the critical engineering tradeoffs, and carried designs through validation and deployment. You’ve remained accountable for design issues discovered in production.

• You understand how accelerators, CPUs, memory, interconnects, networking, and storage affect a complete system. You can turn workload requirements into quantitative sizing, capacity plans, and engineering tradeoffs.

• You’ve evaluated hardware configurations and worked directly with vendors on technical requirements, compatibility, and issue resolution.

• You stay close to the hardware. You can use Linux, scripting, benchmarks, and failure data to investigate problems and distinguish hardware limitations from configuration or software issues.

• You turn open-ended requirements into a buildable design, make tradeoffs clear, and follow through when validation or production evidence challenges your assumptions.

Especially Valuable

Experience in one or more of the following:

• Accelerator systems, server and rack architecture, and scaling compute across multiple racks.

• OEM/ODM collaboration, component qualification, and introducing new hardware platforms.

• High-performance interconnects and storage architectures for distributed workloads, including RDMA networks and parallel file systems.

• Rack integration, power and thermal constraints, liquid-cooling interfaces, and serviceability.

Why Join Cotidal

Design the cluster as a whole system, making quantitative choices across accelerators, CPUs, networking, storage, power and cooling, then carry those designs through validation.

Own work from design through delivery, working directly with the founders. Help shape the foundations of an early company through direct discussion and work across disciplines.

Location & What We Offer

Location: Palo Alto, in person.

Compensation: Competitive salary and equity.

Visa sponsorship: We sponsor work visas and help you navigate the process.

Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision coverage, unlimited PTO, and relocation support as needed.