Software Engineer – Nonlinear Solid Mechanics & High-Performance Computing

Vinci • Palo Alto, CA

11h

About The Position

Vinci4d is seeking a software engineer working at the intersection of computational solid mechanics, numerical methods, and high-performance computing. The role designs, implements, and tunes solvers for geometric and material nonlinearity in solid mechanics, including large deformation, contact, and history-dependent material response, with an emphasis on scaling across modern hardware. The engineer will write production-quality software, contribute to CI/CD infrastructure, and collaborate with physicists, engineers, and software developers to build new simulation capabilities.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience developing solvers for geometric and material nonlinearity in solid mechanics, including large-deformation kinematics, nonlinear constitutive models, and Newton-type convergence schemes.
• Strong foundation in the finite element method for solid and structural mechanics.
• Deep familiarity with iterative linear solvers, such as Krylov methods, and preconditioning techniques for large sparse systems, including hands-on experience implementing them within a nonlinear solver.
• Proven GPU programming experience with CUDA, HIP, SYCL, or similar, and a track record of achieving practical hardware performance.
• Proficiency in C++ and/or Python, with comfort working in performance-critical codebases.
• Strong software engineering practices, including Git workflows, code review, automated unit, integration, and regression testing, and CI/CD pipelines.
• 3–6 years of industry or research experience in a relevant field, such as computational mechanics, scientific computing, computational physics, numerical simulation, or HPC.
• A portfolio of work, such as open-source contributions, published code, or shipped products, demonstrating relevant skills.
• Ability to communicate technical material clearly across disciplines.
• Comfort with ambiguity, self-direction, and taking ownership of work through completion.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with warpage and residual-stress problems in semiconductor manufacturing, such as packaging, die/substrate stacks, or thermomechanical deformation.
• Familiarity with matrix-free methods for nonlinear and linear operator application.
• Experience with geometric multigrid approaches as solvers or preconditioners.
• Background in adaptive mesh refinement.
• Familiarity with embedded geometry or immersed boundary methods for solid mechanics.
• Experience applying machine learning to solid mechanics problems, such as surrogates, constitutive modeling, or solver acceleration.
• Experience with performance profiling tools such as Nsight, VTune, or Roofline analysis.

Responsibilities

• Develop and tune nonlinear solid mechanics solvers for geometric nonlinearity, including large deformation and finite strain, and material nonlinearity, including plasticity, viscoelasticity, and temperature-dependent or history-dependent constitutive models.
• Build and optimize iterative linear solvers and preconditioners for large sparse systems arising at each Newton iteration.
• Port and optimize solvers for GPU execution using CUDA, HIP, or equivalent frameworks, focusing on memory bandwidth, occupancy, and scalability.
• Implement finite element discretizations for structural and thermomechanical field solves, with attention to robustness and convergence in stiff, ill-conditioned, and near-singular conditions.
• Contribute to software engineering practices and infrastructure, including version control, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and code review.
• Collaborate with domain experts to translate physical models and mathematical formulations into correct, efficient implementations.
• Profile and benchmark solver performance, identify bottlenecks, and improve performance.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation with equity participation.
• Flexible work environment.
• Opportunity to work on technically challenging problems with engineering impact as part of a small team.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed