Principal Architect, AI Networking
About the role
The team builds systems-level software that moves data between GPUs, nodes, and storage at the speed modern AI demands—spanning low-level transport optimization, hardware-software co-design, and communication frameworks that plug directly into production AI stacks. The team's charter expands into emerging domains including quantum computing interconnects.
Responsibilities
Setting the long-term technical vision for distributed AI communication systems—GPU-to-GPU, GPU-to-storage, and cross-node data movement.
Conducting original research and prototyping next-generation networking solutions over RDMA, NVLink, and GPUDirect.
Driving hardware-software co-optimization with GPU, DPU, NIC, and network switch.
Investigating fundamental bottlenecks in communication runtimes for large-scale AI workloads (KV cache transfer, disaggregated prefill/decode, model parallelism).
Integrating networking capabilities into AI serving stacks such as vLLM, SGLang, and TensorRT-LLM.
Publishing findings, representing NVIDIA in industry forums and standards bodies, and mentoring senior engineers across the organization.
Requirements
15+ years in systems software and/or networking with deep expertise in high-performance networking (InfiniBand, RoCE, RDMA, NVLink), communication libraries (e.g. NIXL, NCCL, UCX, MPI, NVSHMEM), and GPU accelerated systems, with track record of defining and delivering complex, cross-team technical initiatives from research concept to production.
MS, PhD or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
Deep understanding of computer architecture, memory hierarchies, DMA engines, and OS-level networking.
Understanding of ML systems concepts—transformer architectures, KV cache mechanics, model parallelism, or distributed training and inference patterns.
Proficiency in programming languages such as C, C++, Rust and Python.
Qualifications
Knowledge of ML inference frameworks (vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM) and their communication requirements.
CUDA programming and NVIDIA GPU architecture expertise.
Proved experience influencing product strategy and technical roadmap at a senior level.
Major open-source contributions.
Skills
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
Benefits
With competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package, NVIDIA is widely regarded as one of the most desirable technology employers in the world. Our teams are composed of some of the most forward-thinking and driven engineers in the industry, and we continue to grow rapidly.
Pay
Base salary range: 272,000 USD - 431,250 USD.
Schedule
NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.