Staff Software Engineer, Inference

CoreWeave; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 188,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Company-paid Life Insurance

Voluntary supplemental life insurance

Health Savings Account

Tuition Reimbursement

Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)

Job summary

CoreWeave is seeking a Staff Software Engineer (IC5) on the Inference team in Sunnyvale, CA to lead architecture and performance across services. You will optimize latency, throughput, and GPU utilization while guiding cross-team design and reliability at scale.

You’ll work with distributed systems, Kubernetes infrastructure, and inference workloads, driving memory optimization and batching strategies. A strong background in Go, Python, or C++ is expected.

Qualifications

• 8–12+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems or cloud platforms
• Proven experience leading cross-team technical initiatives impacting multiple services or organizations
• Strong programming skills in Go, Python, or C++
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes at production scale, including orchestration, scheduling, and service design
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, networking, and performance optimization
• Experience designing and operating low-latency, high-throughput systems with strict P95/P99 latency requirements
• Hands-on experience with inference systems, including batching or micro-batching strategies, caching, and memory optimization
• Experience improving system performance using metrics-driven approaches (e.g., latency, throughput, utilization)
• Familiarity with mixed precision (BF16, FP8) and streaming inference workloads

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, performance, and reliability across multiple services and teams within the Inference platform
• Optimize inference performance (latency, throughput, and GPU utilization) and memory usage
• Drive cross-team design initiatives and influence engineering direction
• Work deeply in distributed systems and Kubernetes-based infrastructure, focusing on scheduling, batching, and memory optimization

Skills

Go

Python

C++

Kubernetes

Distributed systems

Performance optimization

Networking

Inference systems

Latency and throughput

Tools

CUDA

NCCL

RDMA

NUMA

GPU interconnects

vLLM

Triton

TensorRT-LLM

Ray Serve

TorchServe

Job description

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence. Trusted by leading AI labs, startups, and global enterprises, CoreWeave combines superior infrastructure performance with deep technical expertise to accelerate breakthroughs and turn compute into capability. Founded in 2017, CoreWeave became a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CRWV) in March 2025. Learn more at www.coreweave.com.

What You’ll Do

The Inference team builds and operates CoreWeave’s Kubernetes-native inference platform, powering low-latency, high-throughput AI workloads at massive scale. The team is responsible for request routing, scheduling, GPU resource management, and system-wide optimizations that drive performance, efficiency, and reliability across real-time inference systems.

About The Role

As a Staff Software Engineer (IC5) on the Inference team, you will act as a technical leader driving architecture, performance, and reliability across multiple services and teams. Your day-to-day will involve leading cross-team design initiatives, optimizing inference performance (latency, throughput, and GPU utilization), and improving system reliability at scale. You will work deeply in distributed systems and Kubernetes-based infrastructure, focusing on areas like scheduling, batching, and memory optimization. This role requires hands‑on technical leadership and the ability to influence engineering direction across the organization.

Who You Are

• 8–12+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems or cloud platforms
• Proven experience leading cross-team technical initiatives impacting multiple services or organizations
• Strong programming skills in Go, Python, or C++
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes at production scale, including orchestration, scheduling, and service design
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, networking, and performance optimization
• Experience designing and operating low-latency, high-throughput systems with strict P95/P99 latency requirements
• Hands‑on experience with inference systems, including batching or micro-batching strategies, caching, and memory optimization
• Experience improving system performance using metrics-driven approaches (e.g., latency, throughput, utilization)
• Familiarity with mixed precision (BF16, FP8) and streaming inference workloads

Preferred

• Experience with inference frameworks such as vLLM, Triton, TensorRT‑LLM, Ray Serve, or TorchServe
• Experience with GPU systems and performance optimization (CUDA, NCCL, RDMA, NUMA, GPU interconnects)
• Experience leading multi-team or org-level technical initiatives
• Exposure to large-scale AI/ML infrastructure or hyperscale cloud environments

Wondering if you’re a good fit?

We believe in investing in our people, and value candidates who can bring their own diversified experiences to our teams – even if you aren't a 100% skill or experience match. Here are a few qualities we’ve found compatible with our team. If some of this describes you, we’d love to talk.

• You love to design and optimize high-performance distributed systems at scale
• You’re curious about AI inference, GPU systems, and emerging performance techniques
• You’re an expert in building reliable, low-latency infrastructure and driving system-wide improvements

Why CoreWeave?

About

At CoreWeave, we work hard, have fun, and move fast! We’re in an exciting stage of hyper-growth that you will not want to miss out on. We’re not afraid of a little chaos, and we’re constantly learning. Our team cares deeply about how we build our product and how we work together, which is represented through our core values:

• Be Curious at Your Core
• Act Like an Owner
• Empower Employees
• Deliver Best-in-Class Client Experiences
• Achieve More Together

We support and encourage an entrepreneurial outlook and independent thinking. We foster an environment that encourages collaboration and enables the development of innovative solutions to complex problems. As we get set for takeoff, the organization's growth opportunities are constantly expanding. You will be surrounded by some of the best talent in the industry, who will want to learn from you, too. Come join us!

The base salary range for this role is $188,000 to $275,000. The starting salary will be determined based on job‑related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location. We strive for both market alignment and internal equity when determining compensation. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes a discretionary bonus, equity awards, and a comprehensive benefits program (all based on eligibility).

What We Offer

The range we’ve posted represents the typical compensation range for this role. To determine actual compensation, we review the market rate for each candidate which can include a variety of factors. These include qualifications, experience, interview performance, and location.

In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a variety of benefits to support your needs. The benefits below reflect our US-based offerings for full‑time employees; for roles in other locations, benefits vary and are shared during the hiring process. These include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance - 100% paid for by CoreWeave
• Company-paid Life Insurance
• Voluntary supplemental life insurance
• Short and long‑term disability insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Health Savings Account
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Ability to Participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)