Staff AI Performance Engineer

Graphcore • Milpitas, CA

20h • Hybrid

About The Position

Lead performance work that turns large-scale AI workloads into faster, more efficient systems. As a Staff AI Performance Engineer, you will analyze and optimize AI training and inference workloads across distributed systems. Your work will connect compute, memory, networking and software behavior. You will lead complex performance workstreams across hardware and software. You will find bottlenecks, validate improvements and turn performance evidence into practical engineering decisions. You will build benchmarks, profile demanding workloads and develop C++ and Python tools for analysis and optimization. Your recommendations will help teams improve efficiency, scalability and reliability. This role gives you broad technical scope across AI infrastructure at data center scale. It is based in Milpitas, California.

Requirements

• Strong experience profiling and optimizing AI, machine learning or high-performance computing workloads.
• Experience with distributed systems and communication libraries such as MPI, NCCL, UCX or libfabric.
• Strong C++ and Python skills, including reliable tools or performance-sensitive software.
• Deep understanding of compute, memory and communication behavior in large-scale systems.
• Ability to lead technically complex work and coordinate improvements across teams.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with MLPerf, accelerated architectures, ML frameworks or high-performance interconnects.
• Transferable skills and diverse experiences.
• Engineers returning to the profession after a career break, including through returnship routes.

Responsibilities

• Analyze and optimize AI training and inference workloads across distributed systems.
• Connect compute, memory, networking and software behavior.
• Lead complex performance workstreams across hardware and software.
• Find bottlenecks, validate improvements and turn performance evidence into practical engineering decisions.
• Build benchmarks, profile demanding workloads and develop C++ and Python tools for analysis and optimization.
• Help teams improve efficiency, scalability and reliability.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage, with options that may extend to eligible dependents.
• Mental health, wellness, and employee assistance resources.
• Retirement savings benefits and company contributions where applicable.
• Paid vacation, sick time, company holidays, and parental or family leave in accordance with applicable plans and policies.
• Life insurance and short-term or long-term disability coverage.
• Flexible working hours and hybrid working arrangements where compatible with the role and team requirements.
• Professional-development resources, learning programs, office amenities, and team-led activities.

What This Job Offers

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