Principal Software Engineer, Kernels - Santa Clara, United States

Originally posted 12 June 2026 by the employer.

About the role

As a Principal Software Engineer, Kernels, you will productize the software stack and develop, enhance, and maintain software kernels for AI hardware.

What you'll do

- Develop, enhance, and maintain software kernels for AI hardware compute engines. - Map computational graphs generated by AI frameworks and mathematical algorithms to underlying hardware architectures. - Optimize and execute hardware-software co-design trade-offs across the full-stack toolchain. - Collaborate with compiler, ML, systems, mixed signal, DSP, and CPU engineers to build out compiler infrastructure. - Deliver and scale software deliverables within tight development windows.

What you'll need

- MS in computer engineering, math, physics, or a related field with 10+ years of industry experience, or a PhD with 5+ years of industry experience. - Strong grasp of computer architecture, data structures, system software, and machine learning fundamentals. - Proficiency in C/C++ and Python development within Linux environments using standard development tools. - Experience implementing algorithms for specialized hardware such as FPGAs, DSPs, GPUs, and AI accelerators using libraries such as CUDA. - Experience implementing ML operators including GEMMs, Convolutions, BLAS, and SIMD operators for operations such as softmax, layer normalization, and pooling. - Experience developing for embedded SIMD vector processors such as Tensilica.

Nice to have

- Prior startup, small team, or incubation experience. - Experience with ML frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. - Experience working with ML compilers and algorithms, such as MLIR, LLVM, TVM, or Glow. - Experience with deep learning frameworks and ML models for CV, NLP, or recommendation. - Work experience at a cloud provider or AI compute/subsystem company.

Skills: software kernels, AI hardware, hardware-software co-design, compiler experts, CUDA