Senior II Software Engineer Lead

Akamai; Cambridge (MA); Remote; USD 146,000 - 264,000; Full time

Job summary

Akamai is seeking a Senior II Software Engineer Lead to drive design and implementation of the AI inference platform, delivering OpenAI-compatible endpoints and orchestrating workloads across regions.

You will mentor engineers, shape technical direction, and ensure scalable, high-performance systems with modern DevOps practices. The role requires strong containerization skills and API design experience.

Qualifications

• 8 years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree or its equivalent.
• Solid proficiency in distributed systems, cloud services, and platform engineering.
• Hands-on experience with AI inference, model serving, or LLM deployment with working knowledge of inference frameworks (TensorRT, vLLM, TorchServe, Triton).
• Expertise in containerization and orchestration technologies including Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud-native architectures.
• Proven experience building scalable, high-performance systems with modern DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code.
• Solid technical leadership through mentoring, code quality advocacy, and ability to drive technical solutions for complex problems.
• Familiarity with API design and development (REST/gRPC patterns), GPU infrastructure and hardware acceleration.
• Knowledge of observability, monitoring, and debugging distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Leading the design and implementation of critical platform components for Akamai Inference Cloud, ensuring performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Driving technical decisions for your domain, selecting appropriate tools, frameworks, and approaches for AI inference workloads.
• Mentoring and guiding engineers on the team through code reviews, design discussions, and technical problem-solving.
• Implementing and optimizing containerized AI workloads with hardware-specific optimizations and integrating inference frameworks at scale.
• Collaborating across teams to define technical requirements, contribute to platform standards, and ensure operational excellence.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud services

Platform engineering

AI inference

Kubernetes

Docker

CI/CD

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

TensorRT

vLLM

TorchServe

Triton

Job description

Do you thrive on technical leadership and building cutting-edge AI systems?

Are you ready to drive innovation at the intersection of AI and edge computing?

Join the Akamai Inference Cloud Team!

The Akamai Inference Cloud team is part of Akamai's Cloud Technology Group. We design, implement, deploy and operate AI platforms that enable customers to run inference models and developers to create AI applications with unmatched performance, compliance, and economics.

Partner with the best

As a Senior II Software Engineer Lead, you will be responsible for driving the design and implementation of critical components of our globally distributed AI inference platform. You'll work hands-on to build and optimize systems that deliver OpenAI-compatible endpoints while orchestrating inference workloads across regions. You will guide other engineers, influence technical direction, and ensure delivery of high-quality, scalable solutions.

As a Senior II Software Engineer Lead, you will be responsible for:

• Leading the design and implementation of critical platform components for Akamai Inference Cloud, ensuring performance, scalability, and reliability
• Driving technical decisions for your domain, selecting appropriate tools, frameworks, and approaches for AI inference workloads
• Mentoring and guiding engineers on the team through code reviews, design discussions, and technical problem-solving
• Implementing and optimizing containerized AI workloads with hardware-specific optimizations and integrating inference frameworks at scale
• Collaborating across teams to define technical requirements, contribute to platform standards, and ensure operational excellence

Do what you love

To be successful in this role you will:

• 8 years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree or its equivalent
• Have solid proficiency in distributed systems, cloud services, and platform engineering
• Demonstrate hands-on experience with AI inference, model serving, or LLM deployment with working knowledge of inference frameworks (TensorRT, vLLM, TorchServe, Triton)
• Show expertise in containerization and orchestration technologies including Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud-native architectures
• Have proven experience building scalable, high-performance systems with modern DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code
• Demonstrate solid technical leadership through mentoring, code quality advocacy, and ability to drive technical solutions for complex problems
• Show familiarity with API design and development(REST/gRPC patterns), GPU infrastructure and hardware acceleration
• Have knowledge of observability, monitoring, and debugging distributed systems

#AIC

About us

At Akamai, we make life better for billions of people, trillions of times a day.

Whether you're streaming live events, scrolling social media, watching your favorite series, or managing your savings, we’re the engine behind the scenes. We provide the world's most distributed platform from Cloud to Edge to help the giants of the digital world work faster and stay more secure, making the internet a better experience for everyone.

Our focus is simple

• Cloud and Edge: Running apps closer to users for instant performance.
• Security: Neutralizing threats before they ever reach your data.
• Content Delivery: Scaling the world's biggest moments without a glitch.
• AI: Enabling our customers to build, secure, and scale AI apps on the world's most distributed cloud platform.

At Akamai, we don't just support the internet; we power and protect it, because behind every great digital experience is a massive hidden challenge. And we're the ones who solve it. When millions of people hit play or pay, Akamai ensures it just works.

Benefits at Akamai: We support your health, well-being, finances, and life beyond work. See our benefits.

FlexBase adapts to your job's needs

Akamai's FlexBase program is yet another way we show our commitment to providing employees with an exceptional workplace experience. It's not about telling employees where to work; it's about supporting employees to do their best work.

We trust our incredible employees to work in ways that suit them best: at home, in an office, or a combination of both.

Connect with us on social and see what life at Akamai is like!

Compensation

Akamai is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For US based candidates only - the base salary for this position ranges from $146,400 - $263,600/year; a candidate’s salary is determined by various factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and location. Compensation for candidates outside the US will vary. The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of annual bonus or incentives, equity awards and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). Akamai provides industry-leading benefits including healthcare, 401K savings plan, company holidays, vacation (in the form of PTO), sick time, family friendly benefits including parental leave and an employee assistance program including a focus on mental and financial wellness; Eligibility requirements apply.

Job Info

• Job Identification 4274
• Posting Date 10/26/2026, 08:20 PM
• Locations 145 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, 02142, US (Remote)