Senior AI Data Path & Storage Architect

Ddn; Sacramento (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

DDN is seeking a highly experienced Senior Staff Engineer specializing in AI data path and storage to lead hands-on development and integration of advanced storage systems with next-generation AI inference pipelines.

You will design and deliver high-performance data movement architectures in collaboration with architects, focusing on ultra-low-latency and high-throughput workloads across GPU, memory, and distributed storage layers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS, Engineering, or related field.
• 12+ years of experience in storage systems, distributed systems, or performance engineering.
• Proven track record of architecting and delivering large-scale, high-performance infrastructure systems.
• Deep expertise in distributed storage architectures (object storage, scalable file systems, or cloud-native storage platforms).
• Strong understanding of Linux I/O stack, filesystem internals, and storage protocols.
• Extensive hands-on experience with NVMe, SSD optimization, and high-performance storage environments.
• Strong experience with RDMA, InfiniBand, or other high-speed data transfer technologies.
• Solid understanding of GPU computing concepts and CPU–GPU data movement patterns.
• Proficiency in Python and/or C/C++, with advanced debugging, profiling, and performance tuning skills.
• Demonstrated ability to optimize latency-sensitive, high-throughput production systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of high-performance data movement pipelines using NVIDIA NIXL across GPU, CPU, and storage tiers.
• Architect integration of DDN Infinia with GPU-accelerated inference platforms for real-time AI workloads.
• Own end-to-end optimization of I/O paths between GPU memory and storage using GPUDirect Storage, RDMA, and NVMe-over-Fabrics.
• Define multi-tier storage architectures (NVMe, SSD, object storage) optimized for latency, throughput, and scalability.
• Lead development of advanced KV cache management strategies across distributed storage layers.
• Partner with AI/ML teams to optimize inference performance in PyTorch and TensorFlow.
• Establish benchmarking frameworks and lead performance tuning for storage and data movement in production inference environments.
• Diagnose and resolve bottlenecks across storage, networking, and GPU subsystems.
• Influence architecture decisions for distributed inference systems, ensuring scalability and data locality.
• Drive observability, performance monitoring, automation, and reliability engineering.
• Mentor junior engineers and provide technical leadership across cross-functional teams.

Skills

Python

C/C++

Linux I/O

RDMA

GPU data movement

Distributed storage

Performance tuning

Profiling

System architecture

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

NVMe

GPUDirect Storage

NIXL

Infinia

InfiniBand

Job description

DDN is seeking a highly experienced Senior Staff Engineer specializing in AI data path and storage to lead hands-on development and integration of advanced storage systems with next-generation AI inference pipelines.

You will design and deliver high-performance data movement architectures in collaboration with architects, focusing on ultra-low-latency and high-throughput workloads across GPU, memory, and distributed storage layers.