Lead Software Engineer, Kernels

MatX; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 600,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

4 weeks PTO (accrued)

Medical, dental and vision insurance

Life insurance

HSA/FSA via Lively

Professional development budget

Team meals onsite

Commute reimbursement

MatX Extras: $50/mo

Cell & Internet stipend

Mental health benefits

Parental leave support

AI resources stipend

Job summary

MatX is building a compute platform for AGI and is seeking a hands-on TLM to lead the Kernel team in Mountain View. You will mentor engineers, design high-performance compute kernels, and align hardware and software with the ML and hardware teams to push the boundaries of AI workloads.

You will contribute by implementing kernels, guiding architecture decisions, and translating complex trade-offs for founders and stakeholders while ensuring a strong software-hardware integration.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of engineering team management experience.
• 7+ years of experience in engineering teams.
• Bachelor of Computer Science or equivalent degree.
• Experience optimizing software for specialized hardware and techniques like parallelism, SIMD, C, assembly, or GPU/CUDA.

Responsibilities

• Manage, mentor, and build a team of kernel engineers and software developers.
• Design and optimize kernels that interface with our hardware.
• Work with ML Research and Hardware Engineering teams.
• Provide guidance on hardware architecture from a programmer's perspective, ensuring integration with the software stack.

Skills

Kernel engineering

Team management

C/C++

CUDA

Rust

Zig

Assembly

GPU programming

Education

Bachelor of Computer Science

Tools

CUDA Toolkit

GPU Tools

Job description

What MatX Is Building

MatX is on a mission to be the compute platform for AGI. We are developing vertically integrated full-stack solutions from silicon to systems including hardware and software to train and run the largest ML workloads for AGI.

We are seeking a hands-on engineering TLM to lead the Kernel team. You will manage, mentor, and grow a team of kernel engineers while setting technical direction and executing. At the same time, you will be an active coding contributor by designing and implementing high-performance compute kernels for specialized AI hardware.

You will partner with the ML team to maximize output and improve diagnostic tools, and collaborate with hardware to co-design next-generation AI architectures.

What You'll Do Here

• Manage, mentor, and build a team of highly specialized kernel engineers and software developers
• Design and optimize kernels that interface directly with our hardware
• Work in partnership with our ML Research and Hardware Engineering teams
• Provide expertise and guidance on hardware architecture from a programmer's perspective, ensuring seamless integration with the software stack

Who You Are

• 2+ years of engineering team management experience
• 7+ years of working directly within engineering teams experience
• Bachelor of Computer Science or equivalent degree
• Experience optimizing software for specialized hardware, employing techniques such as parallelism, SIMD programming, C, assembly-level optimization, or GPU/CUDA programming
• Language: at least one of assembly, C++, C, Zig, or Rust
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage escalations, and align stakeholders around infrastructure decisions.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with a track record of translating complex technical trade-offs with the founders and stakeholders

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience implementing kernels for ML models such as Transformers
• Experience using and implementing distributed parallelism techniques such as AllReduce, AllToAll, data parallelism, tensor parallelism.
• Familiarity with how compilers work

Compensation

The US base salary for this full-time position is determined based on a variety of factors including role, experience, location, job-related skills, and relevant education and training. Career length is only a guideline for compensation.

• Early Career - $160,000 - $275,000 + equity
• Mid Career - $175,000 - $400,000 + equity
• Senior Career - $250,000 - $600,000 + equity

What We Offer

• Time off: 4 weeks PTO (accrued) + 12 company Holidays + up to 3 weeks remote work
• Health: Company-subsidized Medical (Kaiser or Anthem) for employees & dependents, Guardian Dental and Vision insurances for employee & dependents, and life insurance (employee only), plus HSA and FSA offerings via Lively. See attached benefits 1-pager and full benefits guide for more info on benefits.
• Financial Wellbeing: Choose from Roth IRA/ 401K (or both) retirement plans with up to 5% company contribution to 401K (even if you don't contribute). Also, 100% company-paid life insurance (up to $300K) and long-term disability insurances.
• Professional Development: $1500 Professional Development Budget (per year)
• Team Meals: MatX provides onsite team lunch & dinner Monday - Friday, with your choice of ordering via WeBox, Specialty's or via our reimbursement system
• Commute on Us: Commute on our company Uber account, or reimburse your train rides. Either way, we pay 100% for your daily commute.
• MatX E[x]tras: $50/mo to use on the perk you value most
• Cell & Internet Reimbursement: $35/mo for cellular and $40/mo for wifi
• Mental Wellbeing: 100% paid mental health benefit via SpringHealth and Guardian EAP.
• Support to Parents: Up to 12 weeks paid parental leave regardless of path to parenthood, 10 weeks pregnancy disability leave, flexible return-to-work hours, and Benepass reproductive health & parental benefit.
• AI Resources: Up to $20K/month plus a dedicated internal AI Tooling Team to support your productivity

As part of our dedication to the diversity of our team and our focus on creating an inviting and inclusive work experience, MatX is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital/domestic partner status, military and veteran status, genetic information or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances.

All candidates must be authorized to work in the United States and work from our offices in Mountain View Tuesdays-Thursdays.

This position requires access to information that is subject to U.S. export controls. This offer of employment is contingent upon the applicants capacity to perform job functions in compliance with U.S. export control laws without obtaining a license from U.S. export control authorities.