AI Runtime Engineer

About Modular

At Modular, a Qualcomm company, we’re on a mission to revolutionize AI infrastructure by systematically rebuilding the AI software stack from the ground up. Our team, made up of industry leaders and experts, is building cutting-edge, modular infrastructure that simplifies AI development and deployment. By rethinking the complexities of AI systems, we’re empowering everyone to unlock AI’s full potential and tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

At Modular, a Qualcomm company, we’re on a mission to revolutionize AI infrastructure by systematically rebuilding the AI software stack from the ground up. Our team, made up of industry leaders and experts, is building cutting-edge, modular infrastructure that simplifies AI development and deployment. By rethinking the complexities of AI systems, we’re empowering everyone to unlock AI’s full potential and tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

ML developers today face significant friction when deploying trained models. They work in a fragmented space with incomplete, patchwork solutions that require extensive performance tuning and model-specific optimizations. At Modular, we are building the next-generation AI platform that will radically improve how developers build and deploy AI models. A core part of this offering is a platform that enables customers to achieve state-of-the-art performance across model families and frameworks.

As an AI Runtime Engineer, you will own a runtime that operates on various CPU, GPU, and accelerator hardware platforms, optimizing performance for diverse customer AI models.

Candidates based in the United Kingdom are welcome to apply. This role will be based in our Edinburgh office (minimum 3 days per week on-site) with relocation assistance provided for eligible candidates. All new hires complete onboarding in-person.

• Design and develop runtime and cross-stack optimizations to improve CPU, GPU, and accelerator efficiency, addressing issues such as CPU overhead, caching, and data locality across multiple devices.
• Work with vendor-specific networking libraries to unlock high performance data transfer for multiple topologies.
• Collaborate with the compiler, kernels, serving, and models teams to design core technologies that achieve state-of-the‑art end‑to‑end performance on various CPU and GPU hardware.
• Collaborate with the customer success team and engage with customers to understand their performance requirements and use cases.
• Collaborate with tooling and infrastructure teams to design systems for automated performance analysis and benchmarking.

• 2+ years of experience working on high-performance computing systems.
• Experience in C++ programming and complex software systems.
• Experience with CPU or GPU runtime optimizations and performance analysis on CPUs, GPUs, or AI accelerators.
• Proficiency with one or more profiling tools (CPU or GPU).
• Creativity and curiosity for solving complex problems, a team‐oriented attitude that enables you to work well with others, and alignment with our culture.

• Experience with ML graph optimizations, parallel / distributed programming, heterogeneous ML computation, and/or code generation.
• Exposure to MLIR, LLVM, and/or the Mojo programming language.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science or a related area is a plus.

• Amazing Team. We are a progressive and agile team with some of the industry’s best engineering and product leaders.
• World-class Benefits. In order to attract the best, we need to offer the best. Your benefits package may include comprehensive healthcare coverage, retirement and savings programs, employee stock purchase…