Senior Principal ML Engineer — LLMs & Hardware Co-Design

SambaNovaSystems; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health insurance

HSA

Well-being benefits

Job summary

SambaNova Systems is seeking a Senior Principal ML Engineer to design, develop, and optimize LLM-powered models on our RDU hardware, bridging research and production for enterprise-grade deployments.

You will define technical strategy, lead cross-functional co-design with compiler, systems, and hardware teams, and mentor engineers to translate cutting-edge ML techniques into scalable customer-facing solutions like SambaStack and SambaCloud.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of industry experience in machine learning engineering with leadership.
• Deep expertise in LLM training, fine-tuning, inference optimization, and evaluation at scale.
• Strong background in ML algorithms, deep learning architectures, and modern training methodologies.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional technical efforts and mentor senior engineers.
• Proven track record of independently scoping and delivering high-complexity, high-ambiguity technical projects.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive technical strategy for ML model development, training pipelines, and inference systems on SambaNova's RDU and broader hardware ecosystem.
• Lead hardware-software co-design with compiler, systems, and hardware teams—shaping architectural decisions that unlock performance at scale.
• Identify, evaluate, and champion state-of-the-art ML techniques for adoption on reconfigurable dataflow architectures.
• Serve as the senior technical voice in critical design reviews and roadmaps.
• Mentor and develop principal and senior ML engineers, elevating the technical capabilities of the organization.
• Partner with product and engineering leadership to translate ML capabilities into scalable, customer-facing solutions in SambaStack and SambaCloud.
• Drive resolution of the most complex, ambiguous technical challenges.

Skills

ML leadership

LLM training

Inference optimization

Cross-functional leadership

Research to production

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher

Job description

SambaNova Systems is seeking a Senior Principal ML Engineer to design, develop, and optimize LLM-powered models on our RDU hardware, bridging research and production for enterprise-grade deployments.

You will define technical strategy, lead cross-functional co-design with compiler, systems, and hardware teams, and mentor engineers to translate cutting-edge ML techniques into scalable customer-facing solutions like SambaStack and SambaCloud.