Software Engineer, Agent Performance Modeling - New College Grad 2026 - CA, Santa Clara, United States
$124,000 - $241,500 USD yearly
Originally posted 20 October 2026 by the employer.
About the role
This role combines simulation and agentic engineering to understand how LLM architectures and inference workloads map to hardware to guide AI system decisions.
What you'll do
- Build and validate performance models for LLM architectures across GPU, LPU, and heterogeneous systems. - Develop agents to automate simulation workflows, analyze bottlenecks, and conduct design space exploration. - Collaborate with hardware architecture, inference, runtime, and compiler teams to improve modeling accuracy and guide optimization.
What you'll need
- Recently completed MS in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience. - Familiarity with modern LLM architectures and their inference characteristics. - Experience with simulation, profiling, or performance modeling, including roofline analysis for LLM inference. - Strong analytical skills and a rigorous approach to experimentation and validation. - Experience building reliable engineering tools using coding agents.
Skills: Performance modeling, LLM architectures, Inference, Simulation, Roofline analysis
This role has been open 0 days — well below the 195-day median for SoC/Chip Architecture roles.
SoC/Chip Architecture · AI ML Hardware
|
Open roles in category
27
|
Median days open
195 d
|
Median salary
$257k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, skills in demand, and who else is hiring
| Metric | NVIDIA | All employers we track in this specialty (27 roles · 10 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 7 | 27 |
| Open roles in the wider Digital Design & Verification family | 230 | 3283 · 116 employers |
| Median days open | 191 d | 195 d (−4 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $257k |
Skills observed across this category: Performance modeling, LLM architectures, Inference, Simulation, Roofline analysis
Who's hiring in this category
- Qualcomm · 7 open roles · median 195 d
- NVIDIA (this employer) · 6 open roles · median 193 d
- AMD · 3 open roles · median 173 d
- SiFive · 3 open roles · median 192 d
- Infineon Technologies · 2 open roles · median 189 d
- Tenstorrent · 2 open roles · median 221 d
How we counted: 27 open SoC/Chip Architecture (AI ML Hardware) roles from 10 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 21 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Digital Design & Verification family row. Figures refresh nightly.