Senior Software Engineer, CUDA Deep Learning Systems

NVIDIA; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 184,000 - 356,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity and benefits

Job summary

NVIDIA is seeking an experienced software professional in Santa Clara, CA, to drive innovative projects at the convergence of CUDA and Deep Learning Systems. In this role, you will work collaboratively to explore optimizations and design a new generation of systems pushing the limits of deep learning performance.

Ideal candidates will have extensive experience and strong programming skills, with a focus on enhancing performance in multi-node AI systems. This role offers competitive compensation and equity opportunities.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant industry experience or equivalent academic experience.
• Strong understanding of low-level hardware optimization.
• Experience profiling and optimizing deep learning models.

Responsibilities

• Design and optimize high-performance CUDA kernels.
• Architect and optimize distributed computing systems.
• Collaborate with AI researchers and hardware architects.

Skills

C++ programming

Python programming

Deep Learning fundamentals

Distributed computing principles

Systems programming

CUDA programming

Performance optimization

Profiling tools

Education

BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

CUDA

NVIDIA GPUs

Job description

We are looking for an experienced and highly motivated software professional to work on pioneering initiatives and projects at the intersection of CUDA and Deep Learning Systems. As the complexity and scale of artificial intelligence continue to grow, the intersection of advanced deep learning architectures, massive-scale distributed computing, and low-level hardware optimization has never been more critical. Our team is dedicated to exploring and prototyping next-generation ideas that bridge the gap between deep learning algorithms and CUDA, pushing the boundaries of what is possible on modern accelerator architectures.

Join our dynamic, research-oriented team to help unlock maximum hardware performance for emerging AI workloads. You will be a crucial member of a highly technical group exploring uncharted territories in model optimization, custom kernel development, and cluster-scale AI systems design. If you are passionate about the fundamentals of deep learning and thrive on squeezing every ounce of performance out of advanced computing systems from a single GPU to supercomputer clusters, we want you on our team!

What you will be doing:

• Explore, research, and prototype novel systems optimizations for advanced deep learning models at the intersection of high-level DL frameworks and low-level CUDA through modeling, simulation, and silicon prototyping.
• Architect and optimize distributed computing systems that scale seamlessly from a single node to massive, cluster-scale supercomputing environments.
• Design, implement, and optimize custom high-performance CUDA kernels tailored to emerging neural network architectures and workloads.
• Analyze complex hardware-software interactions to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks in both training and inference pipelines.
• Collaborate closely with AI researchers, HW and SW architects, kernel and compiler authors and CUDA driver experts to co-design systems and algorithms that improve accelerator compute utilization, memory bandwidth, cross-node network communication efficiency and programmability.
• Develop exploratory tools and runtime systems to profile and accelerate new paradigms in deep learning.
• Write clean, effective, and maintainable code, ensuring exploratory prototypes can smoothly transition into open-source releases, upstream framework integrations, internal tools, or closed-source commercial products.

What we need to see:

• BS, MS, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 8+ years of relevant industry experience or equivalent academic experience after degree achievement.
• Strong proficiency in C++ and Python programming.
• Solid background in the fundamentals of Deep Learning with a focus on transformers.
• Strong understanding of distributed computing principles, multi-node scaling, and the unique performance challenges of cluster-scale execution.
• Proven experience in systems programming, computer architecture, and low-level systems performance optimization.
• Familiarity with deep learning accelerator architectures such as the GPU and hands‑on experience with CUDA programming and kernel optimization.
• A strong analytical approach with experience using profiling tools to deeply understand software performance on hardware.
• Experience profiling and optimizing innovative vision models, generative AI architectures, or diffusion models.
• Background in deep learning compilers, both graph‑level and codegen (e.g., Triton, XLA, torch compile)

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

• Deep expertise in the performance internals and execution graphs of major deep learning autograd, training and inference frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, TensorRT, vLLM, sgLang, Nemo, Megatron, MaxText, etc.).
• Hands‑on experience with CUDA, communication libraries (e.g., NCCL, MPI, UCX) and distributed machine learning techniques (e.g., pipeline parallelism, tensor parallelism).
• Knowledge of numerical methods, low‑precision arithmetic (e.g., NVFP4, MXFP4, FP8, INT8), and their implications on deep learning model accuracy and performance.
• Familiarity with systems requirements for Reinforcement Learning (RL) or highly parallel simulation environments and/or research background in machine learning systems or adjacent fields.
• Experience with machine learning, especially agentic systems, applied to systems problems.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 184,000 USD - 287,500 USD for Level 4, and 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD for Level 5.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until May 18, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.