Lead Kernel Engineer/Architect (m/f/d)

EPAM Systems; Germany (OH); Hybrid; USD 104,919 - 151,550; Full time

Job summary

EPAM Systems is seeking a Lead Kernel Engineer/Architect to join our team in Germany, working in a hybrid model. This role involves designing high-performance kernels for TPU and GPU architectures, while pushing advanced hardware accelerators to their limits.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in software engineering and performance optimization, particularly at the kernel level. Interested professionals should apply to be a part of our mission to enhance AI performance and scalability.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of industry experience in software engineering or systems programming.
• 5+ years of experience in software development using C++ or Python.
• Hands-on experience in performance optimization at the kernel level for accelerators.

Responsibilities

• Design and optimize high-performance kernels for TPU and GPU architectures.
• Build and maintain performance infrastructure including benchmarking and regression testing.
• Collaborate with ML framework developers and compiler teams for kernel integration.

Skills

C++

Python

Performance optimization

Kernel programming

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Tools

CUDA

Triton

Pallas

Job description

Overview

We’re looking for a Lead Kernel Engineer/Architect to join our team in Germany in a hybrid working mode. Are you passionate about pushing advanced hardware accelerators to their limits? Join us in shaping the future of AI performance and scalability.

Responsibilities

• Design and optimize high-performance kernels for TPU and GPU architectures using low-level programming frameworks such as Pallas, Triton or Mosaic.
• Build and maintain performance infrastructure, including benchmarking suites, autotuning systems, regression testing frameworks and tooling.
• Collaborate with ML framework developers (e.g., JAX, PyTorch) and compiler teams (XLA/MLIR) to integrate custom kernels and reduce performance bottlenecks.
• Track advancements in accelerator hardware, compiler technology and AI model design to identify opportunities for kernel-level optimization.
• Develop clear documentation, APIs and supporting OSS components that improve developer usability and adoption.
• Analyze and resolve complex performance issues impacting large-scale distributed training and inference systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 12+ years of industry experience in software engineering or systems programming.
• 5+ years of experience in software development using C++ or Python.
• 3+ years of experience in testing, maintaining or launching software products and at least 1 year in software design or architecture.
• Hands‑on experience in performance optimization at the kernel level for accelerators or high‑performance systems.

Nice to Have

• Proficiency in low‑level accelerator programming (CUDA, Triton, Pallas).
• Familiarity with ML frameworks such as JAX or PyTorch and optimization techniques for attention layers, Mixture of Experts (MoE) and precision tuning.
• Strong understanding of modern hardware accelerators, including pipelining, data movement and heterogeneous compute.
• Knowledge of compiler principles and intermediate representations (e.g., MLIR, OpenXLA).
• Experience building OSS developer infrastructure, APIs and performance‑critical libraries.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills and ability to collaborate in cross‑functional engineering environments.