Senior/Staff AI Engineer

ddn· Department
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🌍 Remote📍 Remote - CaliforniaFullTime

About this role

What you’ll do

  • Build and optimize LLM serving and inference systems for production environments

  • Improve performance across GPU and CPU pathways

  • Work on KV cache, memory, storage, and throughput bottlenecks

  • Design and scale systems that support RAG and retrieval-heavy AI workloads

  • Contribute to infrastructure where storage architecture and systems efficiency materially affect AI performance

  • Solve engineering problems at the intersection of AI, high-performance systems, and distributed infrastructure

What we’re looking for

  • An engineer who has spent meaningful time building or optimizing production AI systems, not just experimenting with models

  • Someone who understands how inference performance is shaped by the interaction between compute, memory, storage, and serving architecture

  • Deep hands-on experience working close to the systems layer — for example, improving how workloads run across GPU and CPU resources, reducing bottlenecks, or tuning infrastructure for better throughput and latency

  • Evidence of real ownership in areas like model serving, retrieval, caching, storage, or distributed performance, rather than purely application-layer AI work

  • The ability to move comfortably between architecture decisions and hands-on implementation, especially in environments where efficiency and scale matter

  • A background that suggests you can operate in technically demanding environments, whether that comes from AI infrastructure, high-performance systems, storage platforms, or adjacent distributed systems work

  • PhD preferred, but far less important than having built serious systems in the real world

Why this role is compelling

  • This is not a “prompt engineering” job.

  • This is not an “AI wrapper” job.

  • This is not a generic backend role with AI sprinkled on top.

  • This is a chance to work on the infrastructure that determines whether modern AI systems are fast, scalable, efficient, and commercially viable.

  • If you want to work on the real mechanics of AI performance — serving, retrieval, compute efficiency, memory behavior, storage architecture, and inference at scale — this is where that work happens.

Who will love this role

  • Engineers who enjoy deep systems problems

  • Builders who care about performance, scale, and architecture

  • People who want to work where AI meets infrastructure

  • Candidates who would rather solve hard technical bottlenecks than ship surface-level AI features

Who should not apply

This role is not for:

  • Purely academic researchers without meaningful production ownership

  • Generic software engineers without clear AI systems or inference depth

  • Candidates focused mainly on prompt engineering or lightweight application integrations

  • MLOps generalists who have not worked deeply on serving, storage, or performance-critical AI systems

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the salary disclosed for the Senior/Staff AI Engineer position at ddn?
The salary for this Senior/Staff AI Engineer role at ddn is not publicly listed. Click "Apply Now" to learn more about the compensation package on their official careers page.
Is the Senior/Staff AI Engineer job at ddn remote?
Yes, this Senior/Staff AI Engineer position at ddn is remote, with team members based in Remote - California. You can work from home or anywhere in the supported regions.
Is the Senior/Staff AI Engineer role at ddn full-time or part-time?
This is listed as a FullTime position. It is posted as a Senior/Staff AI Engineer role in the Department department at ddn.
Which team or department does the Senior/Staff AI Engineer at ddn belong to?
This Senior/Staff AI Engineer position is part of the Department department at ddn. See the full job description for more information about the team structure and responsibilities.
How do I apply for the Senior/Staff AI Engineer position at ddn?
Click the "Apply Now" button on this page. You will be redirected to ddn's official application portal hosted on ashby where you can submit your application directly.
When was the Senior/Staff AI Engineer job at ddn posted?
This Senior/Staff AI Engineer position at ddn was posted on Jul 31, 2026. Apply as soon as possible — early applications are often reviewed first.
Senior/Staff AI Engineer
ddn
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