Tech Lead Engineer, Physical AI Infrastructure

Bytedance; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 254,000 - 480,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Job summary

ByteDance in San Jose seeks a Tech Lead Engineer for Physical AI Infrastructure to own architecture and delivery across complex AI platforms. You will guide multi-quarter roadmaps, translate research and product needs into concrete plans, and mentor engineers across teams.

The role emphasizes cross-functional leadership, system-level design, and hands-on implementation to advance Physical AI capabilities within a global tech company.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 years of software engineering, machine learning systems, robotics, or related industry experience.
• 3+ years of experience as a tech lead.
• Deep expertise in one or more of: robotic learning (imitation, RL, vision-language-action, world models, policy evaluation), AI training/inference infrastructure (distributed training, inference engines, GPU kernels, collective communication), robotics data and simulation (multimodal datasets, synthetic data, sim-to-real).
• Experience taking technically complex systems from prototype through production deployment.
• Strong communication, self-motivation, engineering judgment, and cross-team collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Track advances in academia, industry, and open-source communities; contribute technical insights, software, and publications where appropriate.
• Own the technical strategy and multi-quarter roadmap for major Physical AI infrastructure areas, translating requirements into architecture and execution plans.
• Lead architecture and delivery across engineers and partner teams; define interfaces, resolve trade-offs, and be accountable for end-to-end outcomes.
• Define interfaces across the Physical AI lifecycle—data pipelines, simulation, model training, evaluation, inference, deployment—owning major platform components.
• Mentor engineers, develop technical leaders, and raise the engineering bar across the team.

Skills

Software engineering

Machine learning systems

Robotics

Technical leadership

System architecture

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in CS/CE/Robotics/EE/AI or related field

Job description

Tech Lead Engineer, Physical AI Infrastructure

Location:

San Jose

Team:

Technology

Employment Type:

Regular

Job Code:

A108448

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Responsibilities

• Track advances in academia, industry, and open-source communities; contribute technical insights, software, and, where appropriate, publications.


• Own the technical strategy and multi-quarter roadmap for major Physical AI infrastructure areas, translating ambiguous research, product, and customer requirements into clear architecture and execution plans.


• Lead architecture and delivery across multiple engineers and partner teams, define system boundaries and interfaces, resolve cross-stack trade-offs, and remain accountable for end-to-end technical outcomes.


• Define interfaces across the Physical AI lifecycle- including data pipelines, simulation, model training, evaluation, inference, and deployment- while directly owning one or more major platform components.


• Mentor engineers, develop technical leaders, and raise the engineering bar across the team.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification(s)

• Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.


• 5 years of software engineering, machine learning systems, robotics, or related industry experience.


• 3+ years of experience as a tech lead.


• Deep expertise in at least one of the following areas, with working knowledge across one or more of the others: robotic learning, including imitation learning, reinforcement learning, vision-language-action models, world models, or policy evaluation; AI training and inference infrastructure, including distributed training, inference engines, GPU kernels, or collective communication; robotics data and simulation systems, including multimodal dataset verification, synthetic data generation, simulation, data curation, or sim-to-real workflows.


• Experience taking technically complex systems from prototype through validation and production deployment.


• Strong communication skills, self-motivation, sound engineering judgment, and the ability to work effectively across research and engineering teams.

Preferred Qualification(s)

• Contributions to relevant open-source projects such as Isaac Lab, Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, Cosmos, vLLM-Omni, SGLang Omni, RLInf, etc.


• Experience building large-scale AI or robotics platforms used by multiple teams or external customers, or experience with real-world robot systems and operational challenges.


• Publications at leading machine learning, systems, or robotics conferences.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $254400 - $480000 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;


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