Staff ML Performance Engineer

Wayve • Sunnyvale, CA

6d • $370,040 - $394,900 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Performance Architecture team is part of Wayve's AI Performance org. We make Wayve's AI workloads faster and more efficient across training and cloud inference, so that performance unlocks new product capability. Our work lets Wayve train larger models faster and run inference more efficiently at scale.

Requirements

• 10+ years of industry experience driving performance engineering across ML systems, GPU compute infrastructure, distributed platforms or similar.
• Optimised large-scale workloads on GPU compute clusters, for training, inference or both.
• Written, reported and tracked performance benchmarks in an open and accessible way.
• Write high quality, well-structured and tested Python code.
• A BS or MS in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical discipline, or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with concurrent, parallel and distributed computing.
• Experience optimising inference serving systems (e.g. latency, throughput, batching, caching).
• Experience using NVIDIA Nsight Systems or other system profilers.
• Experience implementing GPU kernels (CUDA, Triton, etc.).
• Knowledge of computing fundamentals - what makes code fast, secure and reliable.

Responsibilities

• Identify, quantify and deliver optimisations across training and cloud inference workloads.
• Profile workloads to find bottlenecks.
• Build optimisations that work across targets rather than one-off fixes.
• Track the gains with clear benchmarks.
• Work closely with Research and model teams to make performance engineering part of their development cycle.
• Work with platform teams on cloud GPU hardware strategy.
• Profiling ML workloads across training and cloud inference to identify bottlenecks, using system and kernel level profilers.
• Designing and implementing efficiency improvements to maximise MFU, throughput and utilisation, e.g. parallelism, compilation, mixed precision, caching.
• Building reusable, cross-target optimisations (kernels, data loaders, frameworks such as Triton) rather than one-off, per-workflow fixes.
• Designing and implementing benchmarking tools to track efficiency gains and catch regressions on priority training and cloud inference workloads.
• Informing cloud GPU hardware strategy and readiness in partnership with platform teams.
• Building a culture of performance optimisation with Research and model teams.

Benefits

• Salaries benchmarked against the market annually
• Meaningful equity, sharing in the ownership and long term success of Wayve
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship where applicable
• Hybrid working, core hours and the chance to work hands on in vehicle workshops and labs
• Learning and development budgets with support for training, conferences and growth
• Comprehensive benefits including health insurance, dental, enhanced maternity and paternity leave, retirement or pension where applicable, access to therapists, wellbeing partnerships, team socials and more

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Associate degree