{"id":1711539,"url":"https://alion.io/job/designworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2","title":"Staff Inference Engineer","company":{"id":5026,"name":"Designworks Talent","domain":"designworkstalent.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/designworks-talent","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":true,"employer_type":"agency","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":89,"open_postings":9,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.222,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":134,"computed_at":"2026-10-21T05:46:15Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Bellevue, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":163000,"max_usd":327000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":844},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"LLM","optional":true},{"name":"Quantization","optional":true},{"name":"SGLang","optional":true},{"name":"TensorRT","optional":true},{"name":"TensorRT-LLM","optional":true},{"name":"Triton Inference Server","optional":true},{"name":"vLLM","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-02T16:55:42Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-21T10:20:27Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":18,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":18},"description":"Staff Inference Engineer\nLocation: Hybrid | Bellevue, WA (downtown) \nTitles: Senior and Staff (multiple roles available)\nBuild the Inference Platform Powering Next-Generation AI Applications\nAbout the Opportunity\nA well-funded, rapidly growing AI infrastructure company is building a next-generation cloud platform designed to power the full lifecycle of artificial intelligence. The organization is developing a comprehensive AI infrastructure, platform, and services portfolio that supports the full spectrum of AI workloads-including large-scale compute, model training, fine-tuning, inference, and emerging agentic AI applications.\nBacked by significant long-term investment, the company combines the speed, ownership, and innovation of a startup with the stability and resources of an established parent organization. Engineering teams are intentionally lean, highly collaborative, and AI-native, leveraging modern tooling and automation to build infrastructure capable of supporting the industry's most demanding AI workloads.\nWe're seeking Inference Engineers to build and operate the model-serving systems behind a next-generation AI inference platform. This team focuses on delivering high-throughput, low-latency, reliable inference experiences that enable customers to consume advanced AI capabilities through production-scale APIs.\nThe Opportunity\nThis is a foundational engineering role focused on building the systems that bring AI models from research environments into reliable production services. You'll work on the infrastructure layer responsible for serving large models efficiently, optimizing performance, and ensuring reliability as usage scales.\nYou'll collaborate closely with GPU performance, AI training infrastructure, platform engineering, and operations teams to solve complex challenges around model serving, latency optimization, resource efficiency, and production reliability.\nThis opportunity is ideal for engineers who enjoy working at the intersection of distributed systems, machine learning infrastructure, GPU computing, and large-scale production systems.\nWhat You'll Do\nBuild and operate production-grade model-serving and inference systems supporting high-throughput, low-latency AI workloads.\n\nOptimize inference infrastructure for token throughput, latency, scalability, and cost efficiency across different model architectures and workloads.\n\nDesign systems that maximize GPU utilization while maintaining predictable performance and reliability.\n\nImprove the scalability and operational maturity of inference platforms as customer demand grows.\n\nPartner with AI training, GPU performance, orchestration, and infrastructure teams to ensure smooth transitions from model development to production serving.\n\nDevelop monitoring, alerting, and operational practices to maintain reliable inference services.\n\nInvestigate and resolve performance, reliability, and capacity challenges across inference workloads.\n\nContribute to architecture decisions and engineering standards as the platform evolves.\n\nWhat We're Looking For\nExperience building and operating production machine learning inference or model-serving systems at scale.\n\nStrong understanding of the performance trade-offs involved in serving large AI models, including latency, throughput, memory utilization, and cost efficiency.\n\nExperience designing reliable distributed systems or production infrastructure.\n\nUnderstanding of GPU-backed AI workloads and the challenges of scaling inference systems.\n\nStrong engineering fundamentals and the ability to independently own complex technical problems.\n\nComfortable working in a fast-moving environment where systems and processes are being built from the ground up.\n\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience with modern inference-serving frameworks such as vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM, Triton Inference Server, or similar technologies.\n\nExperience optimizing LLM inference workloads or large-scale AI serving platforms.\n\nBackground operating API-based AI products or high-volume production services.\n\nExperience with GPU scheduling, distributed systems, Kubernetes, or cloud infrastructure platforms.\n\nFamiliarity with model optimization techniques such as quantization, batching, caching, or performance tuning.\n\nExperience working at a hyperscaler, AI lab, GPU cloud provider, or large-scale ML infrastructure organization.\n\nCompensation\nCompetitive base pay for Bellevue market\n\nCertain roles are eligible for additional rewards, including merit increases, annual bonus, and long term incentives. These awards are allocated based on individual performance\n\nU.S. based employees have access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan and company match, employees also receive per calendar year, paid holidays.\n\nLocation\nHybrid role based in the Bellevue, WA area.\n\nApproximately three days per week in the office.\n\nCandidates elsewhere in the U.S. who are open to relocation are encouraged to apply.\n\nU.S. work authorization is required. Visa sponsorship is not currently available.\n\nWhy Join?\nBuild the inference platform powering the next generation of AI applications.\n\nWork directly on large-scale model serving, GPU optimization, and production AI systems.\n\nSolve complex challenges around latency, throughput, reliability, and cost efficiency.\n\nJoin early enough to influence architecture, tooling, and engineering practices.\n\nCollaborate with a highly experienced team building critical AI infrastructure from the ground up.\n\nEnjoy the ownership and technical impact of a startup environment backed by significant long-term investment.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5603,"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":["Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-02T17:30:33Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":54,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.542,"p_room":1,"age_days":18,"expected_fill_days":134,"reasons":["conf:0","agency","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-21T05:46:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/designworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/designworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-21T14:27:12Z","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":20607,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00Z"}},"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":5026},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5026"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fdesignworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2"},{"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%2Fdesignworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2"},{"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%2Fdesignworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2"},{"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/designworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fdesignworks-talent-staff-inference-engineer-2"}]}