Member of Technical Staff, Model Efficiency

Cohere; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Inclusive work culture

Weekly lunch stipend

Full health and dental benefits

Mental health budget

Parental leave top-up

Personal enrichment benefits

6 weeks of vacation

6 weeks vacation

Job summary

A leading AI research firm in San Francisco is seeking a Member of Technical Staff specialized in Model Efficiency. In this role, you will enhance LLM inference systems by tackling performance issues and collaborating with cross-functional teams. Ideal candidates have over 5 years of coding experience in C++ or Python and a solid understanding of the LLM inference environment. This position offers a remote-friendly work model, a competitive salary, and extensive benefits including a generous vacation policy.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience writing high-performance, production-quality code.
• Strong programming skills in languages such as C++ or Python.
• Ability to diagnose and resolve performance bottlenecks.
• Ability to diagnose and resolve performance bottlenecks across the model execution stack.
• A strong bias for action — you ship fast, measure impact, and iterate.

Responsibilities

• Work across the inference stack to improve performance metrics.
• Identify bottlenecks and develop optimizations.
• Collaborate closely with modeling and systems teams.

Skills

High-performance coding

C++ programming

Python programming

LLM inference knowledge

Diagnosing performance bottlenecks

Fast shipping and iteration

Benchmarking

Tools

CUDA programming

Distributed systems

Job description

Member of Technical Staff, Model Efficiency

Who are we?

Our mission is to scale intelligence to serve humanity. We’re training and deploying frontier models for developers and enterprises who are building AI systems to power magical experiences like content generation, semantic search, RAG, and agents. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI.

We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. We like to work hard and move fast to do what’s best for our customers.

Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are passionate about their craft. Each person is one of the best in the world at what they do. We believe that a diverse range of perspectives is a requirement for building great products.

Join us on our mission and shape the future!

Why this role?

Our team is a fast-growing group of researchers and engineers focused on building reliable ML systems and pushing the boundaries of LLM inference efficiency. We develop techniques that improve how models execute in production, driving lower latency, higher throughput, and consistent quality across diverse workloads.

As an engineer on this team, you’ll work across the inference stack to improve core performance metrics by diving deep into model execution, identifying bottlenecks, and developing innovative optimizations. You’ll collaborate closely with modeling and systems teams to experiment, measure, and ship improvements that meaningfully accelerate inference. As the team evolves, you’ll have opportunities to build expertise in advanced performance techniques, including GPU/CUDA optimizations, kernel-level improvements, and model execution strategies for MoE and large‑scale architectures.

We have offices in Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Seoul, and London. Remote‑friendly environment, with preferred locations in EST and PST time zones.

You may be a good fit for the Model Efficiency team if you have:

• 5+ years of experience writing high‑performance, production‑quality code
• Strong programming skills in C++ or Python (Rust/Go also welcome)
• Experience working with large language models and familiarity with the LLM inference ecosystem (e.g., vLLM, SGLang, etc.)
• Ability to diagnose and resolve performance bottlenecks across the model execution stack
• A strong bias for action — you ship fast, measure impact, and iterate

It’s a big plus if you have experience with:

• GPU programming, CUDA, or low‑level systems optimization
• Language modeling with transformers (MoE, speculative decoding, KV‑cache optimizations)
• Scaling performance‑critical distributed systems (e.g., computation, search, storage)

If some of the above doesn’t line up perfectly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply!

We value and celebrate diversity and strive to create an inclusive work environment for all. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please submit an Accommodations Request Form, and we will work together to meet your needs.

Full‑time employees at Cohere enjoy these perks

• An open and inclusive culture and work environment
• Work closely with a team on the cutting edge of AI research
• Weekly lunch stipend, in‑office lunches & snacks
• Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget to take care of your mental health
• 100% parental leave top‑up for up to 6 months
• Personal enrichment benefits towards arts and culture, fitness and well‑being, quality time, and workspace improvement
• Remote‑flexible, offices in Toronto, New York, San Francisco, London, and Paris, as well as a co‑working stipend
• 6 weeks of vacation (30 working days!)

Seniority level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment type

Full‑time

Job function

Engineering and Information Technology

Industries: Software Development

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