Linux Full Stack Developer Lead: AI Deployment & Storage Platform

Phison Electronics is a global leader in NAND flash controllers and storage solutions, powering more than one in every five SSDs shipped worldwide. Phison has grown into a multi‑billion‑dollar company with over 4,500 employees – 70% of which are dedicated to R&D – and more than 2,000 patents. The company’s innovations include aiDAPTIV+, an award‑winning AI solution for affordable LLM training and inferencing on‑premises, and Pascari, a portfolio of ultra‑high‑performance enterprise SSDs purpose‑built for data‑intensive workloads across AI, cloud, and hyperscale data centers.

Every controller and drive we ship is designed entirely in‑house. Our products power data centers, enterprise infrastructure, consumer devices, and embedded systems around the world and in space. We are now building an intelligent storage appliance that deploys custom AI models directly at the storage layer. This role leads that effort, with the rare added benefit of direct input into Phison SSD hardware design to optimize our products for AI inference workloads.

As a Lead, you will grow the team as the platform evolves and our customer base expands.

Reports To

CTO/CIO – Chief Technology & Information Officer

Job Level

Senior to Principal

Experience

7+ years development, with experience leading teams

Leadership

Team‑building role – growing a new platform software team

Commercial

Understanding of what is needed to create robust and secure market‑ready solutions.

Location

Hybrid, San Jose CA (Office presence is typically Monday and Friday; remote the rest of the week. We’re open to accommodating individual schedules where the work allows.)

We don’t expect any candidate to check every box. If this role excites you and you meet many (but not all) of the qualifications, we encourage you to apply. Also, we really do have SSD in orbit, on the Lunar surface and on Mars. We especially encourage applications from candidates who have done the work but may not yet have the title, headcount, or formal authority to show for it.

• Lead the architecture and delivery of a Linux‑based AI storage appliance — from kernel interfaces to management APIs.
• Collaborate with partners on LLM deployment at scale: inference serving, optimization pipelines, and production operations with real SLA requirements.
• Implement LLM execution optimizations based on Phison aiDAPTIV technology including KV cache offload to NVMe, quantization, batching, and fine‑tuning workflows.
• Work with Phison’s in‑house hardware and firmware teams to shape Computational SSD and controller design for AI inference workloads.
• Lead and grow a cross‑functional team of Linux and full‑stack engineers — hiring, mentoring, and delivery ownership.

• 7+ years of Linux‑focused software development, and experience leading or growing a technical team, whether through a formal management title or by driving cross‑functional delivery, mentoring, or project leadership.
• Proven commercial track record — at least two products shipped from development through to market.
• Hands‑on expertise in LLM deployment at scale and inference optimization (vLLM, Tensor
  
  RT‑LLM, llama.cpp, or equivalent).
• Practical experience with KV cache offload to storage, quantization (GPTQ/AWQ/GGUF), and LLM fine‑tuning (LoRA/QLoRA).
• Strong Linux full‑stack skills: systems‑level C/C++/Go/Rust, backend services, container orchestration, and CI/CD.

• Linux kernel development, device drivers, or NVMe storage internals.
• Linux security hardening (SELinux, App Armor, secure boot) or networking stack internals.
• Distributed storage platforms (Ceph, Gluster
  
  FS, or equivalent).

• As a leader at Phison, you will be supported by executive partnership and cross‑functional collaboration. You won’t be operating alone.
• We invest in our leaders through mentorship, peer collaboration, and clear decision‑making frameworks.
• We also value engineers who are comfortable working at the edge of what’s known, asking questions, testing hypotheses, and learning quickly in emerging technical spaces.

Salary Range: $200K–$260K

Compensation ranges reflect base salary; final compensation will be determined in good faith based on a…