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Machine Learning Engineer — Inference Optimization

FeatherlessaiRemote (world)

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About the Role

We’re looking for a Machine Learning Engineer to own and push the limits of model inference performance at scale. You’ll work at the intersection of research and production—turning cutting-edge models into fast, reliable, and cost-efficient systems that serve real users.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys deep technical work, profiling systems down to the kernel/GPU level, and translating research ideas into production-grade performance gains.

What You’ll Do

  • Optimize inference latency, throughput, and cost for large-scale ML models in production

  • Profile and bottleneck GPU/CPU inference pipelines (memory, kernels, batching, IO)

  • Implement and tune techniques such as:

    • Quantization (fp16, bf16, int8, fp8)
    • KV-cache optimization & reuse
    • Speculative decoding, batching, and streaming
    • Model pruning or architectural simplifications for inference
  • Collaborate with research engineers to productionize new model architectures

  • Build and maintain inference-serving systems (e.g. Triton, custom runtimes, or bespoke stacks)

  • Benchmark performance across hardware (NVIDIA / AMD GPUs, CPUs) and cloud setups

  • Improve system reliability, observability, and cost efficiency under real workloads

What We’re Looking For

  • Strong experience in ML inference optimization or high-performance ML systems
  • Solid understanding of deep learning internals (attention, memory layout, compute graphs)
  • Hands-on experience with PyTorch (or similar) and model deployment
  • Familiarity with GPU performance tuning (CUDA, ROCm, Triton, or kernel-level optimizations)
  • Experience scaling inference for real users (not just research benchmarks)
  • Comfortable working in fast-moving startup environments with ownership and ambiguity

Nice to Have

  • Experience with LLM or long-context model inference
  • Knowledge of inference frameworks (TensorRT, ONNX Runtime, vLLM, Triton)
  • Experience optimizing across different hardware vendors
  • Open-source contributions in ML systems or inference tooling
  • Background in distributed systems or low-latency services

Why Join Us

  • Real ownership over performance-critical systems
  • Direct impact on product reliability and unit economics
  • Close collaboration with research, infra, and product
  • Competitive compensation + meaningful equity at Series A
  • A team that cares about engineering quality, not hype
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