Staff Software Engineer - Foundation Model API & Infra

Neura Market; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 192,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Databricks is seeking an experienced Staff Engineer to design and build foundation model serving systems for frontier AI models. You will shape architecture for high-throughput, low-latency GPU workloads and collaborate across platform, product, infrastructure, and research teams to deliver a world-class API product.

You will mentor engineers, establish best practices for code quality and testing, and drive technical roadmap decisions to improve scalability, reliability, and operational

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience leading high-scale operationally sensitive backend systems.
• A track record of up-leveling teams engineering excellence.
• Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and system design as applied to large-scale, low-latency serving systems.
• Proven ability to deliver technically complex, high-impact initiatives that create measurable customer or business value.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams in fast-moving environments.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement core systems and APIs that power Databricks Foundation Model Serving, ensuring scalability, reliability, and operational excellence.
• Partner with product and engineering leadership to define the technical roadmap and long-term architecture for serving workloads.
• Drive architectural decisions and trade-offs to optimize performance, throughput, autoscaling, and operational efficiency for GPU serving workloads.
• Contribute directly to key components across the serving infrastructure — from working in systems like vLLM and SGLang to creating token based rate limiters and optimizers — ensuring smooth and efficient operations at scale.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, platform, and research teams to translate customer needs into reliable and performant systems.
• Establish best practices for code quality, testing, and operational readiness, and mentor other engineers through design reviews and technical guidance.
• Represent the team in cross-organizational technical discussions and influence Databricks’ broader AI platform strategy.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend systems

Algorithms and data structures

Low-latency serving

GPU workloads

Tools

vLLM

SGLang

Job description

Databricks is seeking an experienced Staff Engineer to design and build foundation model serving systems for frontier AI models. You will shape architecture for high-throughput, low-latency GPU workloads and collaborate across platform, product, infrastructure, and research teams to deliver a world-class API product.

You will mentor engineers, establish best practices for code quality and testing, and drive technical roadmap decisions to improve scalability, reliability, and operational