{"id":203865,"url":"https://alion.io/job/build-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization","title":"ML Engineer, Inference Optimization","company":{"id":456056,"name":"Build AI","domain":"build.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/build-ai","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":200000,"max":320000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":320000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":true,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"CUDA","optional":false},{"name":"JAX","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Quantization","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Apache TVM","optional":true},{"name":"Claude","optional":true},{"name":"MLIR","optional":true},{"name":"TensorRT","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-30T03:19:20Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-30","last_verified_at":"2026-11-07T03:46:07Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":69,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":69},"description":"About Build AI\nBuild AI is the data hyperscaler for Physical AI. We're vertically integrated across hardware, manufacturing, logistics, collection, and model training to scale the physical labor dataset orders of magnitude faster than anyone in the world.\nJob Summary\nInference is about 90% of compute spend. Economics are heavily driven by inference optimization. We’re hiring someone to make inference cheaper, faster, and good enough that we can scale the data engine and the product without the GPU bill eating the company.\nKey Responsibilities\nOwn inference performance: latency, throughput, and cost per unit of work (tokens, frames, or jobs)\n\nCut the 90% compute line: kernels, batching, quantization, compilation, serving, and hardware utilization\n\nProfile pipelines (Nsight, PyTorch Profiler, or equivalent), find the real bottleneck, and ship the fix\n\nWork with research and product so models that are accurate are also affordable to run at scale\n\nBuild the serving and eval path so experiments don’t hide the inference bill\n\nMeasure cost as a first-class metric, not an afterthought once quality is “done”\n\nYou may be a good fit if you have (Must-have qualifications)\nStrong ML / systems engineer with real inference optimization experience (serving, compilers, CUDA/kernels, quantization, or similar)\n\nComfortable in Python and in C++ or Rust for performance-critical paths\n\nYou think in dollars and tokens/frames per second, not only in accuracy tables\n\nFamiliarity with PyTorch (or JAX) and with profiling tools\n\nComfortable in a small research team shipping under cost pressure\n\nStrong candidates may also have experience with (Nice-to-have qualifications)\nCUDA, kernels, compilers (TVM, MLIR, TensorRT), or quantization in production\n\nYou have owned GPU/accelerator cost as a first-class metric\n\nServing stacks for video or large models\n\nUnderstanding of memory hierarchy, data movement, and low-precision compute\n\nBenefits\nCompetitive pay\n\nMedical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage\n\n$500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits\n\nHousing subsidy of $2k per month for those living within walking distance of the office\n\nRelocation support for those moving to San Francisco (Financial District) or Shenzhen (Nanshan)\n\nVarious wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more\n\nDaily lunch and dinner in our office\n\nUnlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification\n\nUnlimited Codex and Claude credits\n\nTravel\n\nHow we're different\nBuild believes in the Bitter Lesson. By taking a general approach of learning from humans, our addressable market is all physical labor.\nWe are a fully in-person team in San Francisco (Financial District) and Shenzhen (Nanshan), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both and work across disciplines as needed.\nBuild AI is an equal opportunity employer. We review every application. If you do not meet every bullet, still apply. Questions: ","description_format":"text","description_chars":3065,"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":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["AI Training Data & Annotation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-05T04:31:54Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":10,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.371,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":69,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-07T05:47:08Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":320000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/build-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/build-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-07T06:46:18Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":993,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-08T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":456056},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=456056"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fbuild-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fbuild-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fbuild-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/build-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fbuild-ai-ml-engineer-inference-optimization"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":203865}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"build.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":203865},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. Docs: https://alion.io/developers"}}