{"id":3495420,"url":"https://alion.io/job/sambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer","title":"Senior Principal Model Bring-up Engineer","company":{"id":100,"name":"SambaNova Systems","domain":"sambanova.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/sambanova","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":89,"open_postings":16,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.438,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":53,"computed_at":"2026-11-02T06:13:15Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Austin, United States","San Jose, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":208000,"max":312000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":312000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Apache TVM","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Mamba","optional":false},{"name":"Mixture of Experts","optional":false},{"name":"MLIR","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Caching","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"SGLang","optional":false},{"name":"SLURM","optional":false},{"name":"Speculative Decoding","optional":false},{"name":"TensorRT-LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Triton","optional":false},{"name":"vLLM","optional":false},{"name":"XLA","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":true},{"name":"Hugging Face","optional":true},{"name":"TensorRT","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-29T21:17:18Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-29","last_verified_at":"2026-11-02T22:28:55Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":4,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":4},"description":"SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, delivering a full-stack inference platform for customers worldwide. At the core of SambaNova's technology is the RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) - a chip built on a dataflow architecture rather than the traditional GPU model. Its decode performance is especially strong for agentic workloads like multi-turn agents, code generation, and long-running applications. RDUs are packaged into SambaRack, rack-scale hardware that lets customers deploy state-of-the-art models with better performance, greater energy efficiency, and faster time to value.\nAbout the team\nWe take frontier open-weight models (dense, mixture-of-experts with hundreds of experts, hybrid Mamba/attention, sliding-window attention, multi-token prediction) from Hugging Face to production serving on SambaNova's RDU dataflow accelerators. That means compiling them, proving them numerically correct against the reference, serving them with the full feature set, and merging the work into a shared stack so the next model is cheaper.\nAbout the role\nYou will bring new open-weight LLMs, including dense, mixture-of-experts, and hybrid Mamba/attention architectures, up on SambaNova’s RDU dataflow accelerators and into production serving. That means adapting the model, mapping it across chips and hosts, compiling it, and validating it numerically against the reference. You also build inference features like continuous batching, speculative decoding, and FP8/FP4 as shared modules, so each new model costs less to bring up.\nResponsibilities\nBring up new LLM architectures end to end: model adaptation, checkpoint conversion, multi-chip / multi-host mapping, compile, strict numerical validation, production serving with latency / throughput numbers.\nBuild inference features once as shared modules: continuous batching over a paged KV pool, prompt caching, chunked and incremental prefill, dynamic tensor shapes, speculative decoding (EAGLE-3, drafters, MTP), FP8 / FP4, tensor and expert parallelism.\nDebug where model, compiler and hardware meet; land each fix in the right shared component.\nRequired qualifications\nB.S. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field\n8+ years of industry experience in ML systems, inference, or compiler engineering\nStrong Python and PyTorch internals experience, plus some C++\nDeep transformer-inference knowledge, including KV caching, GQA and sliding window attention, MoE routing, prefill vs decode, batching, and speculative decoding\nHands-on experience with accelerator bring-up, ML compilers (MLIR, XLA, TVM, Triton, torch-mlir), or inference engines (vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM)\nRigor in numerical debugging\nComfort with Bazel, Slurm, and large monorepos\nClear writing and evidence-backed claims\nPreferred qualifications\nM.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field\nExperience with dataflow or spatial compilers\nExperience with kernel DSLs\nExperience with FP8 and FP4 inference\nExperience with Mamba and SSMs\nExperience with expert parallelism\nExperience with multi-agent AI engineering workflows\nOpen-source inference or compiler contributions\nSuccess in six months\nOwn a model family from first compile to served and merged; turn a one-model fix into a shared module others adopt; measurably shorten one long loop for the team.\n\nBase Salary Range:\nBase Pay Range\n$208,000—$312,000 USD\nSubmission Guidelines\n Please note that in order to be considered an applicant for any position at SambaNova Systems, you must submit an application form for each position for which you believe you are qualified. \nEEO Policy\n SambaNova Systems is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard basis of age (40 and over), color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin/ancestry, race, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding), sexual orientation, and any other applicable status protected by federal, state, or local laws.\nBenefits Summary for US-Based, Full-Time Employment Positions\nSambaNova offers a competitive total rewards package, including the base salary, plus equity and benefits. We cover 95% premium coverage for employee medical insurance, and 77% premium coverage for dependents and offer a Health Savings Account (HSA) with employer contribution. We also offer Dental, Vision, Short/Long term Disability, Basic Life, Voluntary Life, and AD&D insurance plans in addition to Flexible Spending Account (FSA) options like Health Care, Limited Purpose, and Dependent Care. Our library of well-being benefits available to you and your dependents includes a full subscription to Headspace, Gympass+ membership with access to physical gyms, One Medical membership, counseling services with an Employee Assistance Program, and much more.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4937,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Health insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["LLM & Generative AI","Servers & Data Center Hardware","AI Compute & Inference","AI Chips & Accelerators"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-30T01:11:52Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 23 · green card filings: 30","filings_12m":23,"filings_prev_12m":34,"green_card_filings_12m":30,"median_offered_wage_usd":182500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":3,"expected_fill_days":53,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-02T06:13:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":312000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/sambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/sambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-02T22:33:32Z","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":31644,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-03T00:00:00Z"}},"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":100},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=100"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer"},{"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%2Fsambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer"},{"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%2Fsambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer"},{"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/sambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsambanova-systems-senior-principal-model-bring-up-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3495420}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"sambanova.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3495420},"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. 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