Senior HPC Systems Validation Engineer

Neura Market; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Lambda is seeking a seasoned Hardware Engineer to validate and scale HPC/AI compute hardware across NPI cycles and deployment. You will lead functional, stress, and reliability tests, manage firmware compatibility, and partner with cross‑functional teams to ensure production‑ready platforms.

You will own lab setups for repeatable evaluation, drive component qualification, and collaborate with vendors and data center teams to optimize hardware for large‑scale AI workloads.

Qualifications

• 5 years of experience in hardware integration validation, fleet hardware reliability engineering, component qualification, or related areas.
• Deep knowledge of system integration testing and performance benchmarking at L10/L11/L12 levels.
• Experience validating server hardware platforms for AI/ML, general compute, storage, or network switches.
• Hands-on experience with hardware NPI cycles and production-scale validation and triage.
• Collaborate across architecture, hardware, datacenter engineering, supply chain, fleet and infrastructure teams to deliver production-ready hardware solutions.
• Strong ownership and ability to work in ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Own system integration validation for new HPC/AI compute, storage and network hardware during NPI and deployment readiness.
• Develop and run functional, stress, reliability, error-injection, and benchmark tests on new hardware; enable scale testing automation.
• Collaborate with deployment, fleet, infrastructure, PMO teams to enable tooling automation and benchmarking across hardware NPI and deployment.
• Manage firmware and software compatibility; track firmware/software releases during NPI and post-production maintenance.
• Support RMA triage on critical issues; perform failure analysis and drive reliability improvements with Platform Hardware and Quality teams.
• Set up hands-on lab and testing infrastructure for repeatable hardware evaluation with cross-team coordination.
• Liaise with hardware vendors on validation and manufacturing testing; support vendor evaluation and quarterly business reviews.
• Drive alternate component qualification from technical evaluation through PLM enablement; develop validation plans for memory, SSDs, NICs, PSUs, PDUs, fans, cables, optics, and transceivers.

Skills

hardware integration validation

fleet hardware reliability engineering

component qualification

performance validation

HPC validation

system integration testing

performance benchmarking

vendor collaboration

Tools

BMC BIOS

rack-scale servers

PLM/BOM

Job description

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.

*Note: This position requires presence in our San Jose office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

Hardware Engineering at Lambda is responsible for building and scaling the physical infrastructure powering all of Lambda's products. Our scope spans the full hardware lifecycle: roadmap and architecture, proof-of-concept for state-of-the‑art platforms, new product introduction (NPI), and fleet‑scale operations — all engineered for gigawatt‑scale AI factories with rack‑first design, advanced liquid cooling, and next‑generation interconnects at the cutting edge of the industry. If you want your hardware work running at the frontier of AI compute, at a scale few teams in the industry operate at, this is that team.

What You’ll Do

• Own system integration validation for new HPC AI/ML, general purpose compute, storage, and network hardware platforms throughout hardware NPI and deployment readiness.
• Development and execution of functional, stress, reliability, error‑injection and benchmark tests on new hardware systems. Enable automated tools for doing scale testing.
• Collaborate with HPC deployment and operation teams, fleet engineering teams, infrastructure engineering and PMO teams to facilitate tooling automation and L10/L11/L12 level benchmarking throughout hardware NPI and at new hardware deployment.
• Manage the firmware and software compatibility, track and recommend firmware and software releases during NPI, support HPC operation team on firmware and software maintenance after production release.
• Support RMA team on critical hardware issues’ triage and Root‑Cause‑Analysis after deployment; own fleet hardware issues’ failure correlation, trend analysis, close the loop with Platform Hardware Engineer and Quality team to improve product reliability.
• Own hands‑on lab setup and test infrastructure for repeatable hardware evaluation, partnering with Platform Hardware Engineer, Data Center Engineering, and Cluster Network Design to ensure new platforms can be brought up, instrumented, stressed, benchmarked, and debugged consistently.
• Manage hardware vendors regarding hardware validation and manufacturing testing; support new vendor evaluation and Quarterly Business Review on hardware vendors.
• Drive alternate component qualification from technical evaluation through PLM enablement, develop and execute validation plans for key commodities such as memory, SSDs, NICs, PSUs, PDUs, fans, cables, optics, and transceivers.

You

• 5 years of experience in one or many of the following areas: hardware integration validation, fleet hardware reliability engineering, component qualification, performance validation for HPC, data center, or cloud infrastructure products.
• Possess deep knowledge in system integration testing and performance benchmarking at one or many of the L10, L11 and L12 levels.
• Experiences in validation of one or many of the following server hardware platforms: AI/ML, general compute (x86 and ARM), storage systems, or network switches.
• Hands‑on experiences with vendor‑led product NPI cycles and can drive hardware validation, issues triage, debugging and root cause in both NPI and after production at scale.
• Collaborate well across architecture, hardware and datacenter engineering, supply chain, fleet and infrastructure engineering, HPC deployments and operations, and vendor engineering teams to deliver complete, production‑ready hardware solutions.
• Strong ownership and can do attitude; self‑starter who feels comfortable working in ambiguity.

Nice to Have

• 10+ years of experience in one or many of the following areas: hardware integration validation, fleet hardware reliability engineering, component qualification, performance validation for HPC, data center, or cloud infrastructure products.
• Experience supporting AI/ML infrastructure and accelerated compute hardware (e.g., NVIDIA, AMD, Intel).
• Experience in acceptance testing to enable large scale hardware deployments.
• Deep knowledge in BMC, BIOS settings and network card configurations.
• Proficient in validating, issue triaging, benchmarking and performance tuning for rack‑scale servers at L10, L11, L12 levels.
• Working knowledge of infrastructure toolings for asset management, provisioning, hardware lifecycle management, etc.
• Working knowledge in PLM systems and BOM structure.

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Lambda

• Founded in 2012, with 500+ employees, and growing fast
• Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In‑Q‑Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove
• We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG
• Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers
• We offer generous cash & equity compensation
• Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
• Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles
• 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)
• Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use

Equal Opportunity Employer

Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.