Staff Engineer, Compiler

Samsungsemiconductor; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 163,000 - 253,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

4+ weeks paid time off

Medical/Dental/Vision benefits

Flexible work arrangements

Onsite gym and café

Mental health support

Job summary

Samsung Semiconductor in San Jose is seeking an expert to join the AGI Computing Lab, focusing on AI/ML workloads. The ideal candidate will work on adapting compiler techniques for hardware, designing kernel DSLs, and contributing to open-source projects.

The role requires a Bachelor's with 10+ years or a higher degree with relevant experience, especially in Triton or MLIR. The position offers a competitive salary range and extensive benefits including 4+ weeks of PTO and flexible work arrangements.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of industry experience with a Bachelor's, 8+ with a Master's, or 5+ with a PhD.
• 3-5+ years in machine learning libraries like Triton or Helion.
• Experience designing kernel DSLs or making language-level changes.

Responsibilities

• Adapt torch.compile to hardware for efficient compilation.
• Build or extend kernel DSLs for hardware compatibility.
• Design placement and scheduling passes for memory management.
• Implement parallelism-aware lowering in the compiler.

Skills

Experience with Triton

Experience with MLIR

Experience with kernel autotuning

HPC background

Open-source contributions

Education

Bachelor's degree with 10+ years of experience

Master's degree with 8+ years of experience

PhD with 5+ years of experience

Tools

PyTorch

Triton

Helion

Job description

The AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) Computing Lab is dedicated to solving the complex system-level challenges posed by the growing demands of future AI/ML workloads. Our team is committed to designing and developing scalable platforms that can effectively handle the computational and memory requirements of these workloads while minimizing energy consumption and maximizing performance. We collaborate closely with hardware and software engineers to identify and address the unique challenges posed by AI/ML workloads and to explore new computing abstractions that can provide a better balance between the hardware and software components of our systems. Additionally, we continuously conduct research and development in emerging technologies and trends across memory, computing, interconnect, and AI/ML, ensuring that our platforms are always equipped to handle the most demanding workloads of the future. By working together as a dedicated and passionate team, we aim to revolutionize the way AI/ML applications are deployed and executed, ultimately contributing to the advancement of AGI in an affordable and sustainable manner.

Join us in our passion to shape the future of computing!

Location

Daily onsite presence at our San Jose, CA office / U.S. headquarters in alignment with our Flexible Work policy.

What You’ll Do

• Adapting torch.compile to our backend: lowering Inductor’s IR to our hardware, defining what gets fused, what gets specialized, and where the compiler should yield to hand‑written kernels.
• Building or extending kernel DSLs for our hardware: taking a tile‑based programming model (Triton‑style), a higher‑level expression (Helion‑style), or a custom DSL we design, and lowering it to our ISA, our memory hierarchy, and our collective primitives.
• Designing placement and scheduling passes: given a graph and our distributed memory model, deciding where tensors live, when to migrate them, and how to overlap compute with data movement.
• Implementing parallelism‑aware lowering: making tensor, pipeline, expert, and sequence parallelism first‑class in the compiler IR rather than bolted on at the framework layer.
• Fusion, tiling, and memory planning: the classical compiler problems, reframed for a non‑uniform memory hierarchy where the right tile size and the right placement are coupled decisions.
• Upstream contributions: where we use open‑source DSLs, we want our work to land upstream rather than live in a private fork. You’ll engage with upstream review processes for PyTorch, Triton, Helion, and adjacent projects.

What You Bring

• Bachelor’s with 10+ years, or Master’s with 8+ years, or PhD’s with 5+ years of industry experience.
• 3–5+ years of industry experience in at least one of: Triton, Helion, MLIR, XLA, TVM, Inductor, IREE, CUTLASS, or a proprietary equivalent.
• Experience designing a kernel DSL or its IR from scratch, or making non‑trivial language‑level changes to an existing one.
• Experience with MLIR — writing dialects, passes, or backend integration.
• Experience building PyTorch backends for non‑CUDA accelerators (XPU, ROCm, MPS, TPU, custom).
• Experience with kernel autotuning, performance modeling, or cost‑based compilation.
• Background in HPC, distributed systems, or NUMA‑aware programming.
• Open‑source contributions to PyTorch, Triton, Helion, LLVM/MLIR, or similar projects is a big plus.

Compensation

Base Pay Range: $163,000 – $253,000 USD. Incentive opportunities reward employees based on individual and company performance.

Benefits

• Paid time off: 4+ weeks per year, plus holidays and sick leave.
• Medical/Dental/Vision/401(k) and inclusive rewards plan.
• Charitable giving match and community involvement opportunities.
• Fertility care or adoption stipend, medical travel support, virtual vet care.
• On‑demand mental health apps and free confidential therapy sessions.
• Onsite café and gym, virtual fitness classes.
• Flexible work arrangements.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Samsung Semiconductor takes pride in being an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to fostering an environment where all individuals feel valued and empowered to excel, regardless of race, religion, color, age, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, ancestry, genetic information, marital status, national origin, political affiliation, or veteran status. We prioritize talent and qualities such as humility, kindness, and dedication. We extend comprehensive accommodations throughout our recruiting processes for candidates with disabilities, long‑term conditions, neurodivergent individuals, or those requiring pregnancy‑related support. All candidates scheduled for an interview will receive guidance on requesting accommodations.

Recruiting Agency Policy

We do not accept unsolicited resumes. Only authorized recruitment agencies that have a current and valid agreement with Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. are permitted to submit resumes for any job openings.

Applicant AI Use Policy

At Samsung Semiconductor, we support innovation and technology. However, to ensure a fair and authentic assessment, we ask that candidates rely on their own knowledge and skills throughout the process. AI tools may be used for basic preparation, grammar, and research, but should not be used to generate or assist with submitted content or live interview responses.

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By submitting an application, you agree not to disclose to Samsung—or encourage Samsung to use—any confidential or proprietary information (including trade secrets) belonging to a current or former employer or other entity.

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