{"id":2609,"url":"https://alion.io/job/aleph-alpha-senior-ai-rd-engineer-performance-pre-training-fmd","title":"Senior AI R&D Engineer - Performance - Pre-training (f/m/d)","company":{"id":137,"name":"Aleph Alpha","domain":"aleph-alpha.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/aleph-alpha","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":100,"computed_at":"2026-10-29T05:49:05Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Heidelberg, Germany"],"countries":["DE"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":92000,"max_usd":191000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":19},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CUDA","optional":false},{"name":"FSDP","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"MPI","optional":false},{"name":"NCCL","optional":false},{"name":"Pre-training","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"C","optional":true},{"name":"DeepSpeed","optional":true},{"name":"Megatron-LM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-02-26T16:47:56Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-29T10:10:17Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":244,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":1,"flags":[],"days_open":244},"description":"Our Mission\nAleph Alpha is one of the few companies in Europe doing serious foundation model pre-training like our recently released Kolibri-1 model. Our customers - in finance, manufacturing, public administration - need models that understand German, meet European regulatory requirements, and work reliably in high-stakes settings. We're building that in Heidelberg.\nWe are hiring a Senior Performance Engineer to grow our pre-training efficiency team. If you are excited about making models fast and scaling them to thousands of GPUs, this is the role for you!\nTeam Culture\nAt Aleph Alpha, we foster a culture built on ownership, autonomy, and empowerment. Teams and individual contributors are trusted to take responsibility for their work and drive meaningful impact. We maintain a flat organizational structure with efficient, supportive management that enables quick decision-making, open communication, and a strong sense of shared purpose.\nAbout the role:\nYou will engineer the systems required to train foundation models at scale. Your objective is to maximize hardware utilization and training throughput on our large-scale GPU clusters (thousands of NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs). You will work at the intersection of deep learning frameworks, distributed systems, and GPU microarchitecture, eliminating bottlenecks from the Python layer down to the GPU kernel.\nThis role is for Aleph Alpha Research GmbH.\nYour responsibilities:\nEnd-to-End Optimization: Profile training loops using PyTorch Profiler, Nsight Systems and Nsight Compute to identify system- and kernel-level bottlenecks in order to maximize model throughput.\n\nDistributed Strategy and Topology: Configure and tune composite parallelism strategies (e.g. TP, DP, HSDP/FSDP, EP), optimizing load balance, minimizing critical-path bottlenecks, and managing communication-to-computation trade-offs for large-scale LLM training.\n\nHardware-Aware Modeling: Partner with AI Researchers to define model architectures for hardware efficiency without compromising convergence.\n\nYour Profile\nBasic Qualifications\nAre proficient in Python and the PyTorch library.\n\nHave a strong engineering background in parallel and/or distributed systems with proven track record of excellence.\n\nHave hands-on experience with modern machine learning techniques (especially large language models and their life cycle).\n\nDeeply understand the CUDA programming model.\n\nHave experience in distributed programming with APIs like NCCL or MPI.\n\nHave experience analysing profiling traces with tools such as PyTorch Profiler and Nvidia Nsight.\n\nPlease note this role requires regular on-site collaboration in Heidelberg as a member of the Training Efficiency Team.\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nContributions to modern distributed training frameworks (e.g., TorchTitan, Megatron-LM, DeepSpeed).\n\nFamiliarity with low-precision training formats (MXFP4, MXFP8) and their impact on numerical stability and throughput.\n\nA deep understanding of NCCL communication primitives, NVSHMEM or CUDA IPC and their performance.\n\nA proven track record of implementing and optimising modern transformer-based model training.\n\nA proven track record working on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture.\n\nCompensation and Benefits\nBecome part of an AI revolution!\n\n30 days of paid vacation\n\nAccess to a variety of fitness & wellness offerings via Wellhub\n\nMental health support through nilo.health\n\nSubstantially subsidized company pension plan for your future security\n\nSubsidized Germany-wide transportation ticket\n\nBudget for additional technical equipment\n\nFlexible working hours for better work-life balance and hybrid working model\n\nJobRad® Bike Lease","description_format":"text","description_chars":3661,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Flexible schedule","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Germany","iso":"DE","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["LLM & Generative 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