Principal Systems Performance Engineer

Micron Technology, Inc; Longmont (CO); On-site; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Micron Technology, Inc. in Colorado is seeking a Principal Systems Performance Engineer to lead complex performance studies from the initial question through the final recommendation, guiding SSD architecture and product development.

This is a hands-on senior individual‑contributor role in the Data Center Workload Engineering team. You will deploy customer‑representative workloads on Linux, develop test plans with clear hypotheses, instrument systems, isolate bottlenecks, and translate results

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/EE or related field with 8 years of experience.
• Experience leading complex systems performance, benchmarking, or workload characterization.
• Hands-on experience deploying and debugging data center applications on Linux.
• Deep understanding of system performance and the storage I/O path (Linux I/O, file systems, NVMe, PCIe).
• Experience with perf, eBPF, bpftrace, fio or equivalent tools.
• Proficiency in Python or similar for test automation and data analysis.
• Ability to lead ambiguous technical work and make data-supported recommendations.
• Clear written and verbal communication with engineering, customer, and executive audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead application performance studies on enterprise servers, GPU-accelerated systems, and data center storage platforms.
• Deploy workloads such as AI training/inference, databases, virtualization, and object storage.
• Develop test plans with hypotheses, realistic configurations, controls, and repeatable methods.
• Instrument systems and trace I/O from application to SSD, measuring throughput, latency, scaling, and power.
• Isolate bottlenecks across applications, OS, drivers, networks, NVMe, PCIe; recommend changes.
• Build automation, test harnesses, and analysis tools to improve coverage and turnaround time.
• Evaluate new SSD features and architectures with real use cases; translate findings into roadmaps.
• Turn results into engineering reports, briefs, reference architectures, and presentations.

Skills

Python

Performance analysis

eBPF

bpftrace

fio

Automation

Leadership

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field

Tools

perf

Linux performance tools

Job description

Overview

Micron Technology is a world leader in innovating memory and storage solutions that accelerate the transformation of information into intelligence, inspiring the world to learn, communicate and advance faster than ever.

Micron’s Data Center Workload Engineering team tests how memory and storage products perform in complete data center systems. We deploy customer‑representative AI, database, virtualization, and software‑defined storage workloads in production‑class labs, trace I/O from the application through the system to the SSD, and explain performance and identify opportunities to improve it.

As a Principal Systems Performance Engineer, you will lead complex performance studies from the initial question through the final recommendation, personally lead the hardest investigations while setting technical direction for the team. Your work will guide SSD architecture and product development and help customers get the best performance from Micron products. This is a hands‑on senior individual‑contributor role.

Job Profile: Systems Software Engineer 5

Key Responsibilities

• Lead application performance studies on enterprise servers, GPU‑accelerated systems, and data center storage platforms.
• Deploy customer‑representative workloads across one or more areas, such as AI training and inference, checkpointing, KV‑cache offload, data preparation, databases, virtualization, and software‑defined and object storage.
• Develop test plans with clear hypotheses, realistic configurations, appropriate controls, and repeatable methods.
• Instrument systems and trace I/O from the application through the software and storage stack to the SSD. Measure application throughput, completion time, scaling efficiency, tail latency, consistency, and power, then correlate those results with system and device telemetry.
• Isolate bottlenecks across applications, operating systems, drivers, networks, PCIe, NVMe, and storage devices. Recommend software, system, or product changes based on the findings.
• Build automation, test harnesses, and analysis tools that improve test coverage, repeatability, and turnaround time.
• Evaluate new SSD features, system architectures, and competing solutions with real applications and customer use cases.
• Turn test results into engineering reports, technical briefs, reference architectures, and presentations for engineering teams, customers, and executives.
• Work directly with SSD architects, product engineers, customer teams, and ecosystem partners to translate findings into architecture, product‑roadmap, software, and customer‑deployment decisions.
• Set technical direction for performance work, review methods and results, and mentor engineers across the team.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, with 8 years of experience.
• Extensive experience leading complex systems performance, application benchmarking, or workload characterization work.
• Hands‑on experience deploying and debugging data center applications on Linux systems.
• Deep understanding of system performance and the storage I/O path, including Linux I/O, file systems, block storage, NVMe, and PCIe.
• Experience with performance and system‑analysis tools such as perf, eBPF, bpftrace, application profilers, fio, or equivalent tools.
• Proficiency in Python or another language used to automate tests and analyze data.
• Demonstrated ability to lead ambiguous technical work, identify root causes, and make recommendations supported by data.
• Clear written and verbal communication with engineering, customer, and executive audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience testing AI infrastructure or another production data center workload domain such as databases, virtualization, high‑performance computing, or distributed storage.
• Experience with GPU‑accelerated systems and AI frameworks.
• Experience with software‑defined or object storage platforms such as WEKA, Ceph, Cloudian, or MinIO.
• Experience measuring power, efficiency, quality of service, or storage device behavior under application load.
• A record of technical influence through product decisions, customer outcomes, design reviews, reusable tools, publications, patents, or open‑source contributions.

Equal Opportunity Employment Statement

Micron is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, citizenship status, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.