AI Kernel Engineer - RISC-V

Job Description

Overview

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Mentium Technologies Inc. is seeking an Embedded Software Engineer to develop and optimize high-performance compute software for our custom RISC-V-based vision AI accelerator.

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You will work at the intersection of embedded systems, computer architecture, and machine learning, developing high-performance compute kernels, runtime components, libraries, and developer-facing SDK tools. A key part of the role will be efficiently mapping compute-intensive workloads such as convolution, matrix multiplication, and signal-processing operations onto a multicore RISC-V SoC.

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The role focuses heavily on vector/SIMD execution, memory optimization, data movement, multicore parallelism, and low-level performance optimization .

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Prior RISC-V experience is valuable but not required . Engineers with backgrounds in ARM NEON/SVE, x86 SIMD/AVX, DSP software, GPU kernel programming, embedded performance optimization, or other low-level parallel architectures are encouraged to apply.

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You will collaborate closely with RTL design, system architecture, software, and machine learning teams to turn architectural capabilities into a practical, high-performance, and extensible software platform.

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Key Responsibilities

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• Develop and optimize high-performance ML and DSP compute kernels , including operations such as convolution, matrix multiplication, activation functions, pooling, image-processing primitives, and related numerical workloads
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• Optimize computationally intensive C/C++ code for vector/SIMD execution, multicore processing, and the SoC memory hierarchy
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• Build reusable compute libraries, runtime components, APIs, and developer-facing components for the Mentium SDK
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• Develop efficient data-movement, memory-management, and workload-scheduling strategies
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• Optimize the use of caches, scratchpad memories, DMA engines, and on-chip memory resources
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• Profile workloads and identify compute, memory-bandwidth, synchronization, and system-level performance bottlenecks
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• Perform low-level performance analysis using profiling, benchmarking, cycle measurements, and hardware/software debugging tools
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• Integrate optimized compute kernels and runtime components into AI model deployment and inference workflows
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• Develop functional tests, performance benchmarks, reference examples, and SDK documentation
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• Collaborate closely with RTL and system-architecture engineers to validate hardware features and improve end-to-end system performance
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• Contribute to the architecture and programming model of Mentium's RISC-V accelerator software stack
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• Evaluate and adapt relevant open-source libraries, runtimes, compiler technologies, and numerical software
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• Help define software requirements and provide feedback that influences future hardware architecture
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Required Qualifications

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• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
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• 3+ years of combined relevant industry, graduate research, doctoral research, or applied research experience
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• Strong programming skills in C and/or C++
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• Experience developing or optimizing performance-critical software
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• Experience with at least one area of low-level performance programming, such as:
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• SIMD or vector programming
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• DSP programming
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• GPU kernel programming
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• Assembly or intrinsic-based optimization
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• Performance-critical embedded software
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• Numerical or high-performance computing
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• Solid understanding of computer architecture, memory systems, and parallel processing
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• Experience with performance profiling, benchmarking, low-level debugging, or cycle-level optimization
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• Familiarity with computational workloads such as convolution, matrix multiplication, image processing, signal processing, or other numerical kernels
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• Ability to reason about memory access patterns, data locality, computational efficiency, and hardware utilization
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• Ability to read hardware specifications and work effectively with hardware and RTL engineers
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• Proficiency with Python for testing, automation, benchmarking, tooling, or application development
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• Experience with Git and standard collaborative software-development practices
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• Strong written and verbal communication skills
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Preferred Qualifications

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Experience in several of the following areas is valuable, but we do not expect candidates to have experience with all of them :

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• RISC-V instruction-set architecture or the RISC-V Vector Extension (RVV)
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• ARM NEON or SVE, x86 SSE/AVX, DSP vector architectures, GPUs, or other SIMD/vector processors
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• Vector intrinsics, assembly programming, compiler intrinsics, or low-level code optimization
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• DSP, image-processing, numerical-computing, or machine-learning kernel development
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• Quantized inference, fixed-point arithmetic, INT8/INT16 computation, FP16/BF16, or other reduced-precision numerical formats
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• DMA, scratchpad memory, cache hierarchies, memory bandwidth optimization, and multicore synchronization
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• Embedded, bare-metal, real-time, or resource-constrained software development
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• Multicore SoCs or heterogeneous compute architectures
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• Open-source RISC-V platforms such as PULP or similar multicore/accelerator systems
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• Machine-learning frameworks and model formats such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, TFLite, or ONNX
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• Compiler and deployment technologies such as LLVM, MLIR, TVM, Deeploy, or related systems
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• SDKs, runtime libraries, numerical libraries, developer tools, or reusable software APIs
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• Hardware-software co-design, SoC development, FPGA prototyping, architectural simulation, or custom accelerator development
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• Open-source software or research software development
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Why Join Mentium?

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At Mentium, you will work at the intersection of custom silicon, RISC-V, high-performance embedded software, and AI .

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You will work directly with the engineers designing the underlying hardware and play a central role in determining how developers and machine-learning workloads interact with our accelerator.

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Rather than simply programming an existing processor, you will have the opportunity to influence the hardware-software boundary: identifying architectural bottlenecks, developing optimized compute kernels, evaluating new programming approaches, and providing feedback that can shape future generations of the hardware.

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Benefits:

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• Competitive compensation packages
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• Opportunity to work on diverse, cutting-edge AI projects across a range of industries.
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• 401(k)
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• Flexible PTO
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• Full PPO medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage
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