Staff/Principal AI Transformation Engineer New San Jose, CA

Didi Labs; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 255,000 - 351,000; Full time

Job summary

DiDi Autonomous Driving seeks a visionary Staff or Principal AI Transformation Engineer to drive company-wide AI transformation. You will fuse LLM expertise with robust systems architecture and enterprise scaling, embedding with core engineering teams to elevate R&D into an AI-native powerhouse.

The role emphasizes cross-functional influence, advanced AI infra, and leadership across perception, planning, and simulation domains to deliver production-ready AI platforms and accelerated innovation.

Qualifications

• Cross-functional authority to align diverse engineering teams toward an AI-first paradigm.
• Experience leading or heavily contributing to a large-scale AI-native transformation.
• Hands-on deployment, tuning, and optimization with mainstream AI infra tools.
• Deep experience in distributed LLM training/inference and large-scale compute I/O.

Responsibilities

• Spearhead evaluation and deep integration of frontier LLM ecosystems and AI platforms.
• Embed with core autonomous driving teams to translate AI capabilities into production-ready ecosystems.
• Design scalable LLM deployment pipelines, monitoring, and feedback loops; optimize GPU usage and latency.
• Maintain a forward-looking technical roadmap tying external AI innovations to internal systems.

Skills

Cross-Functional Influence

Enterprise AI Transformation

AI Tech Stack

Infra Experience

Tools

PyTorch

Ray

vLLM

Triton Inference Server

Kubernetes

DeepSpeed

Megatron-LM

Job description

Staff/Principal AI Transformation Engineer

San Jose, CA

About the Company

DiDi's autonomous driving unit was established in 2016 with the mission of developing Level 4 autonomous driving (AD) technology to make transportation safer and more efficient. In August 2019, the unit became an independent company, DiDi Autonomous Driving, dedicated to advanced AD R&D, product application, and business expansion. We believe integrating AD technology into a shared-mobility fleet will generate immense social value. By leveraging DiDi's specialized technology, operational expertise, and integrated ecosystem, we are positioned to build and operate a highly efficient, user-oriented autonomous fleet.

About The Role

At DiDi Autonomous Driving, we firmly believe that the future of mobility goes beyond simply "utilizing AI"— it will be fundamentally reimagined and entirely driven by an AI-Native architecture.

We are seeking a visionary, highly technical, and mission-driven Staff or Principal AI Transformation Engineer to act as the ultimate catalyst for our company-wide AI transformation. In this strategic, high-impact leadership role, you will combine cutting‑edge Large Language Model (LLM) expertise, robust systems architecture design, and a proven track record of enterprise‑level AI scaling. You will embed deeply with our core engineering teams to evolve our traditional R&D organization into a truly AI‑Native powerhouse.

Key Responsibilities

• AI Infrastructure & Platform Architecture: Spearhead the evaluation, selection, and deep integration of frontier LLM ecosystems (e.g., Llama, Hugging Face) and commercial AI platforms. Own the architectural design of our unified, distributed AI platform spanning complex data processing, model training, inference pipelines, and evaluation frameworks.
• Forward Deployed Execution: Embed directly with core autonomous driving teams (Perception, Prediction, Planning & Control, and Simulation) via the FDE model. Pinpoint engineering bottlenecks, eliminate friction, and translate complex AI capabilities into production-ready internal ecosystems (e.g., AI DevOps, AI Copilots).
• LLMOps / MLOps Orchestration & Optimization: Design and implement highly resilient, scalable automation pipelines for LLM deployment, monitoring, and continuous feedback loops. Optimize GPU cluster utilization, minimize inference latency, and maximize throughput across large-scale production environments.
• Technical Roadmap & Vision: Keep a strong pulse on breakthrough trends in AGI and systems engineering. Act as a "super‑connector" between external technological innovations and internal systems, ensuring our AI infrastructure maintains a 1‑3 year competitive edge.

Qualifications & Experience

• Cross‑Functional Influence: Demonstrated ability to build technical authority, align priorities, and drive diverse engineering teams (Algorithms, Infrastructure, Hardware) toward adopting an AI‑first engineering paradigm without relying on formal administrative authority.
• Enterprise AI Transformation: Proven experience leading or heavily contributing to a large-scale corporate “AI-native transformation,” or a track record of building enterprise‑grade AI/ML platforms from 0 to 1.
• Deep AI Tech Stack Expertise: Thorough hands‑on deployment, tuning, and optimization experience with mainstream AI infrastructure tools and frameworks, including but not limited to PyTorch, Ray, vLLM, Triton Inference Server, Kubernetes, DeepSpeed, and Megatron‑LM.
• Hardcore AI Infra Experience: Years of deep, practical experience in distributed LLM training/inference optimization and large-scale compute cluster infrastructure & operations (I&O).

Preferred Qualifications

• Domain Expertise: Familiarity with autonomous driving algorithms (Perception, Planning, Control, Simulation), robotics, physics‑based simulation engines, or ultra‑large-scale ML training/serving clusters is highly preferred.
• Senior Industry Track Record: 8‑10+ years of professional engineering depth in systems software, core cloud infrastructure, or production‑grade machine learning platforms.
• Agentic Frameworks & Developer Productivity: Hands‑on experience building custom AI Copilot applications, autonomous Multi‑Agent Frameworks, or high‑tier developer productivity platforms.
• Thriving in Complexity: Proven success steering core project delivery amidst complex business logic, fast‑paced/high‑pressure environments, or mission‑critical systems.
• Technical Influence: An active contributor to the broader tech community (e.g., open‑source maintainer/owner, author of high‑quality technical blogs/papers, or speaker at premier industry AI/ML conferences).

The base salary range for this full‑time position is $255,000 -$351,000 annually in addition to bonus, equity and benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job‑related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

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