{"id":127957,"url":"https://alion.io/job/pika-ml-engineer-inference-optimization","title":"ML Engineer, Inference & Optimization","company":{"id":48170,"name":"Pika","domain":"pika.art","url":"https://alion.io/company/pika","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":250000,"max":350000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":350000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CUDA","optional":false},{"name":"CUDA Toolkit","optional":false},{"name":"Edge AI","optional":false},{"name":"NCCL","optional":false},{"name":"Pika","optional":false},{"name":"Quantization","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-06-23T21:47:29Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-06-23","last_verified_at":"2026-10-17T21:16:48Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":116,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":115},"description":"About the Role\nWe are seeking Senior/Staff level Inference Engineers to accelerate the performance of Pika's AI-driven products. In this highly technical role, you will operate at the intersection of cutting-edge inference acceleration, GPU parallelism, advanced model deployment, and video generation technologies. Your expertise will drive significant improvements to model speed and efficiency, ensuring our creative AI systems deliver industry-leading user experiences at scale.\nYou will design and optimize inference pipelines, implement state-of-the-art acceleration techniques, and work closely with researchers and engineers across the team to push the boundaries of what’s possible in real-time AI deployment. Your efforts will play a foundational role in powering the next generation of Pika’s video and language models.\nWhat You’ll Do\nAccelerate Inference: Lead and implement advanced inference acceleration techniques, including attention optimization and quantization for efficient model serving.\n\nMaximize GPU Parallelism: Engineer and optimize GPU strategies across tensor, sequence, and pipeline parallelism (TP, SP, PP) for maximal efficiency and scalability.\n\nProgramming for Performance: Develop and optimize high-performance computing kernels and distributed workloads using CUDA and NCCL.\n\nAdvance AI Deployment: Collaborate with research and engineering teams to bring state-of-the-art videogen and large language models into production.\n\nImprove Training Efficiency: (Bonus) Contribute to improvements in model training speed, stability, and resource utilization as part of our deployment lifecycle.\n\nTechnical Excellence: Drive rigorous code reviews, participate in technical discussions, and mentor fellow engineers on best practices in inference and GPU programming.\n\nWhat We’re Looking For\nExperience: 5+ years engineering experience, with a strong track record in inference acceleration and model deployment at scale.\n\nInference Mastery: Proven expertise in inference optimization, including quantization, attention acceleration, and deep learning compiler stacks.\n\nGPU & Parallelism: Deep knowledge of GPU programming (CUDA, NCCL) and experience with SP, TP, PP, and other forms of parallelism for distributed inference.\n\nAI Domain Knowledge: Familiarity with video generation (videogen) models and large language models (LLMs).\n\nCollaboration: Strong cross-discipline communication skills; able to drive shared goals across research and engineering functions.\n\nOwnership Mindset: Self-driven, solutions-oriented, and capable of managing ambiguity in a fast-paced startup environment.\n\nBonus: Experience in enhancing training efficiency, stability, or resource optimization for large models.\n\nNice to Have\nExperience with high-throughput video or real-time streaming model deployment\n\nFamiliarity with distributed training and optimization toolkits\n\nContributions to open source projects in AI infrastructure or deep learning compilers\n\nStartup or rapid prototyping experience\n\nWhat We Offer\nCompetitive salary in the AI industry\n\nEquity in a fast-growing startup shaping the future of AI\n\nComprehensive health benefits, monthly stipends, company retreats\n\nA supportive and collaborative office culture-we’re all building and launching together\n\nAbout Pika\nAt Pika, we're crafting a future where video creation is seamless, intuitive, and universally accessible. Our mission is to empower creativity by breaking down technical barriers using the transformative power of AI. We’re a tight-knit, energetic team based in Palo Alto, CA, valuing efficiency, curiosity, and the ambition to make a meaningful impact on the world.\nWe work from our Palo Alto office 3-5 days a week and welcome applicants who are eager to contribute onsite.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3760,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["LLM & Generative AI","Generative Video"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-06-23T21:47:29Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":14,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.51,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":115,"expected_fill_days":39,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":350000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/pika-ml-engineer-inference-optimization","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/pika-ml-engineer-inference-optimization.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-17T23:34:38Z","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":1863,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-18T00:00:00Z"}},"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":48170},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=48170"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fpika-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%2Fpika-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%2Fpika-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/pika-ml-engineer-inference-optimization\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fpika-ml-engineer-inference-optimization"}]}