Performance Kernel Engineer for Custom AI Silicon

River AI; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 420,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision benefits

Unlimited PTO

Relocation support

Job summary

River AI is hiring a senior kernel generation engineer to design and implement a robust compute engine for our custom silicon. You will emit optimized ISA assembly code and bridge high-level compilation with hardware capabilities.

Join a team of researchers and engineers to push the absolute limits of performance on frontier models, working across compiler, silicon, and DL research to maximize compute efficiency.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or Electrical Engineering with 5+ years in low-level performance programming.
• Deep understanding of hardware programming models such as CUDA, Triton, CUTLASS or custom accelerator assembly and proven kernel optimization experience.
• Advanced knowledge of computer architecture including vector units, pipelines, registers, and memory hierarchies.
• Proficiency in modern C++ for robust meta-programming and code-generation frameworks.
• Strong mathematical foundation in linear algebra and deep learning primitives.
• Collaborative mindset to push boundaries with hardware and compiler teams.

Responsibilities

• Design and build C++ code-generation frameworks that emit optimized custom ISA assembly code.
• Develop core deep learning primitives (GEMM/MatMul, Attention, Convolutions) for custom hardware.
• Automate instruction scheduling, register allocation and software pipelining to maximize ALU utilization.
• design tiling, double-buffering, and data-mmovement strategies to optimize on-chip SRAM and memory bandwidth.
• Work with RTL/architecture teams to evaluate ISA and influence future compute units.
• Benchmark generated assembly against hardware simulators and silicon to ensure correctness.

Skills

CUDA

Triton/CUTLASS

C++ metaprogramming

Computer Architecture

Low-level performance programming

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering, CS, or EE

Job description

River AI is hiring a senior kernel generation engineer to design and implement a robust compute engine for our custom silicon. You will emit optimized ISA assembly code and bridge high-level compilation with hardware capabilities.

Join a team of researchers and engineers to push the absolute limits of performance on frontier models, working across compiler, silicon, and DL research to maximize compute efficiency.