Software Engineer - GenAI inference

P-1284About This RoleAs a software engineer for GenAI inference, you will help design, develop, and optimize the inference engine that powers Databricks’ Foundation Model API. You’ll work at the intersection of research and production, ensuring our large language model (LLM) serving systems are fast, scalable, and efficient. Your work will touch the full GenAI inference stack — from kernels and runtimes to orchestration and memory management.What You Will DoContribute to the design and implementation of the inference engine, and collaborate on model-serving stack optimized for large-scale LLMs inferenceCollaborate with researchers to bring new model architectures or features (sparsity, activation compression, mixture-of-experts) into the engineOptimize for latency, throughput, memory efficiency, and hardware utilization across GPUs, and acceleratorsBuild and maintain instrumentation, profiling, and tracing tooling to uncover bottlenecks and guide optimizationsDevelop and enhance scalable routing, batching, scheduling, memory management, and dynamic loading mechanisms for inference workloadsSupport reliability, reproducibility, and fault tolerance in the inference pipelines, including A/B launches, rollback, and model versioningIntegrate with federated, distributed inference infrastructure – orchestrate across nodes, balance load, handle communication overheadCollaborate cross-functionally: with platform engineers, cloud infrastructure, and security/compliance teamsDocument and share learnings, contributing to internal best practices and open-source efforts when possibleWhat We Look ForBS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, or a related fieldStrong software engineering background (3+ years or equivalent) in performance-critical systemsSolid understanding of ML inference internals: attention, MLPs, recurrent modules, quantization, sparse operations, etc.Hands-on experience with CUDA, GPU programming, and key libraries (cuBLAS, cuDNN, NCCL, etc.)Comfortable designing and operating distributed systems, including RPC frameworks, queuing, RPC batching, sharding, memory partitioningDemonstrated ability to uncover and solve performance bottlenecks across layers (kernel, memory, networking, scheduler)Experience building instrumentation, tracing, and profiling tools for ML modelsAbility to work closely with ML researchers, translate novel model ideas into production systemsOwnership mindset and eagerness to dive deep into complex system challengesBonus: published research or open-source contributions in ML systems, inference optimization, or model servingPay Range TransparencyDatabricks is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above. For more information regarding which range your location is in visit our page here.Local Pay Range$142,200—$204,600 USDAbout DatabricksDatabricks is the data and AI company. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, Grammarly, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to unify and democratize data, analytics and AI. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices around the globe and was founded by the original creators of Lakehouse, Apache Spark, Delta Lake and MLflow. To learn more, follow Databricks on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.BenefitsAt Databricks, we strive to provide comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees. For specific details on the benefits offered in your region click here.Our Commitment to Diversity and InclusionAt Databricks, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone can excel. We take great care to ensure that our hiring practices are inclusive and meet equal employment opportunity standards. Individuals looking for employment at Databricks are considered without regard to age, color, disability, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.ComplianceIf access to export-controlled technology or source code is required for performance of job duties, it is within Employer's discretion whether to apply for a U.S. government license for such positions, and Employer may decline to proceed with an applicant on this basis alone.