Senior Research Scientist - DPU & AI Infra

Senior Research Scientist - DPU & AI Infra

Location: Seattle

Team: Infrastructure

Employment Type: Regular

Job Code: A17626A

Team Overview

The ByteDance DPU (Data Processing Unit) team is building the foundational computing infrastructure for ByteDance and Volcano Engine Public Cloud. Our mission is to advance the architecture, development, and research of next-generation software-hardware technologies across compute, networking, and storage for cloud and AI computing. Our technology stack spans:

• Cloud virtualization & hypervisors
• High-performance user-space network protocols (DPDK, RDMA, etc.)
• High-speed interconnect and virtual switching
• Distributed storage acceleration
• GPU virtualization and scheduling for AI/ML workloads

We work at the intersection of software systems, distributed infrastructure, and custom hardware acceleration, shaping the next wave of cloud-scale computing.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop DPU network software with a focus on high performance, low latency, and reliability.
• Collaborate with hardware teams to build software-hardware co-design solutions for networking and storage acceleration.
• Explore AI/ML infrastructure acceleration, leveraging DPUs, GPUs, and custom hardware to optimize distributed training and inference.
• Drive end-to-end performance optimization, from OS kernels and drivers to user-space runtime systems.
• Contribute to architecture design, technical proposals, and long-term research directions.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• B.S./M.S. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related fields; or Ph.D. with strong research/publications.
• 3+ years of relevant industry experience (exception for Ph.D. with strong background).
• Proficiency in C/C++ development and debugging.
• Strong Linux systems development experience.
• Solid understanding of compute, network architecture, and operating systems.
• Background in at least one of: software-hardware co-design, distributed systems, high-performance networking, or AI/ML systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ph.D. in related fields with research training and publications.
• Experience with software-hardware co-design (networking, storage, or distributed compute).
• Hands-on experience with network virtualization (OVS, SR-IOV, eBPF).
• Familiarity with DPDK and high-performance user-space networking.
• Bonus points for hardware acceleration experience, FPGA/ASIC/GPU/CUDA.
• Bonus points for experience with NCCL Collectives along with AI communication patterns and parallelization techniques.
• Proven experience designing and building AI/ML infrastructure related but not limited to inference kv cache system, data preprocessing system.

Job Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $202,160 - $368,220 annually.

Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.

Benefits

Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

Reasonable Accommodation

ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at

Equal Employment Opportunity

For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates: Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:

1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems;
3. Exercising sound judgment.