Senior Software Engineer, GPU Systems

ByteDance; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 162,000 - 388,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) plan with company match

Paid parental leave

RSUs / equity

Job summary

ByteDance in California is seeking a seasoned systems software engineer to build and optimize low-level GPU software spanning kernel drivers, runtimes, firmware interfaces, and performance tooling. You will own technically challenging features end to end and collaborate across the stack, with accountability for code quality, validation, and production outcomes.

You will work with hardware, software, and platform teams to ensure reliable deployment, measurable performance, and robust diagnostics

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain production GPU system software across kernel-driver, runtime, firmware-interface, host-management components, debugging tracing and profiling tools, and GPU system performance measurement tools
• Own accelerator features from proof of concept and architecture through implementation, pre-silicon or emulation validation, bring-up, qualification, and deployment.
• Debug complex failures involving GPUs, CPUs, memory, PCIe or interconnects, IOMMU, firmware, operating systems, runtimes, and distributed workloads.
• Profile workloads and remove bottlenecks in initialization, memory movement, scheduling, synchronization, communication, recovery, and device utilization.
• Build automated tests, telemetry, dashboards, health checks, and diagnostic tools that make failures reproducible and regressions visible.
• Partner with silicon, firmware, compiler, library, machine-learning framework, platform, validation, and production teams to deliver compatible system behavior.
• Improve resilience through error detection, isolation, retry, reset, repair, graceful degradation, and clear operational procedures.
• Review low-level designs and code, document hardware/software contracts, and share practical performance and debugging methods with peers.

Skills

C/C++ programming

Kernel/driver development

GPU/accelerator software

Performance debugging

System-level debugging

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent

Tools

CUDA

ROCm

OpenCL

Triton

Job description

About the Team

We are a systems software team building the foundational software for large-scale GPU computing platforms. We work at the hardware/software boundary across the Linux kernel, accelerators, storage, firmware, and platform validation. We value rigorous engineering, clear interfaces, measurable performance and reliability, and upstream collaboration where appropriate. The team partners closely with hardware, architecture, product, validation, and production engineering groups to move new capabilities from design through dependable deployment.

About the Role

You will build and optimize low-level software that makes modern GPU accelerators usable, observable, and reliable in production. Your work may span kernel drivers, runtime components, firmware interfaces, resource management, telemetry, debugging tools, and performance-critical paths. You will own technically difficult features end to end and collaborate across the stack while remaining primarily accountable for code, validation, and production outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain production GPU system software, including kernel-driver, runtime, firmware-interface, host-management components, debugging tracing and profiling tools, and GPU system performance measurement tools
• Own accelerator features from proof of concept and architecture through implementation, pre-silicon or emulation validation, bring-up, qualification, and deployment.
• Debug complex failures involving GPUs, CPUs, memory, PCIe or interconnects, IOMMU, firmware, operating systems, runtimes, and distributed workloads.
• Profile workloads and remove bottlenecks in initialization, memory movement, scheduling, synchronization, communication, recovery, and device utilization.
• Build automated tests, telemetry, dashboards, health checks, and diagnostic tools that make failures reproducible and regressions visible.
• Partner with silicon, firmware, compiler, library, machine-learning framework, platform, validation, and production teams to deliver compatible system behavior.
• Improve resilience through error detection, isolation, retry, reset, repair, graceful degradation, and clear operational procedures.
• Review low-level designs and code, document hardware/software contracts, and share practical performance and debugging methods with peers.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 3+ years of professional programming experience in C or C++ for low-level, embedded, kernel, driver, runtime, or performance-critical software.
• Solid understanding of computer architecture, operating systems, concurrency, memory hierarchies, DMA, interrupts, and device I/O.
• Hands-on experience with GPU or accelerator software in at least one layer, such as kernel drivers, runtimes, firmware, libraries, collective communication, or performance tooling.
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose system failures using traces, logs, profilers, debuggers, counters, and controlled experiments.
• Experience delivering and maintaining production-quality features across hardware and software teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with CUDA, ROCm, Level Zero, OpenCL, Triton, CUTLASS, or comparable accelerator programming and runtime environments.
• Knowledge of GPU scheduling, memory management, virtualization, PCIe, coherent interconnects, NUMA, or multi-GPU topology.
• Experience with pre-silicon development, board bring-up, firmware communication, baseboard management controllers, or fleet qualification.
• Familiarity with distributed training or inference and topology-aware communication libraries; this is preferred rather than a universal requirement.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $162000 - $387600 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.

About Us

Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.

Why Join ByteDance

Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life - a mission we work towards every day.

As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an \"Always Day 1\" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.

Diversity & Inclusion

ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request