Staff Software Engineer, Model Serving

About the role

Design and implement core systems and APIs that power Databricks Model Serving, ensuring scalability, reliability, and operational excellence.

Partner with product and engineering leadership to define the technical roadmap and long-term architecture for serving workloads.

Drive architectural decisions and trade-offs to optimize performance, throughput, autoscaling, and operational efficiency for CPU and GPU serving workloads.

Contribute directly to key components across the serving infrastructure — from model container builds and deployment workflows to runtime systems like routing, caching, observability, and intelligent autoscaling — ensuring smooth and efficient operations at scale.

Collaborate cross-functionally with product, platform, and research teams to translate customer needs into reliable and performant systems.

Lead technical initiatives that improve latency, availability, and cost-effectiveness across both customer-facing and foundational serving layers.

Establish best practices for code quality, testing, and operational readiness, and mentor other engineers through design reviews and technical guidance.

Represent the team in cross-organizational technical discussions and influence Databricks’ broader AI platform strategy.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement core systems and APIs that power Databricks Model Serving, ensuring scalability, reliability, and operational excellence.
• Partner with product and engineering leadership to define the technical roadmap and long-term architecture for serving workloads.
• Drive architectural decisions and trade-offs to optimize performance, throughput, autoscaling, and operational efficiency for CPU and GPU serving workloads.
• Contribute directly to key components across the serving infrastructure — from model container builds and deployment workflows to runtime systems like routing, caching, observability, and intelligent autoscaling — ensuring smooth and efficient operations at scale.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, platform, and research teams to translate customer needs into reliable and performant systems.
• Lead technical initiatives that improve latency, availability, and cost-effectiveness across both customer-facing and foundational serving layers.
• Establish best practices for code quality, testing, and operational readiness, and mentor other engineers through design reviews and technical guidance.
• Represent the team in cross-organizational technical discussions and influence Databricks’ broader AI platform strategy.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in model serving, inference systems, and related infrastructure (e.g., routing, scheduling, autoscaling, and observability).
• Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and system design as applied to large-scale, low-latency serving systems.
• Proven ability to deliver technically complex, high-impact initiatives that create measurable customer or business value.
• Experience leading architecture for large-scale, performance-sensitive CPU/GPU inference systems.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams in fast-moving environments.
• Strategic and product-oriented mindset with the ability to align technical execution with long-term vision.
• Passion for mentoring, growing engineers, and fostering technical excellence.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field preferred.

Skills

• Experience with distributed systems and microservices architecture.
• Knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker, and container orchestration tools.
• Proficiency in Python, Java, or C++.
• Experience with machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or ONNX.
• Understanding of cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure.
• Experience with database technologies such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MongoDB.
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK Stack.

Benefits

Comprehensive benefits and perks that meet the needs of all of our employees.

Pay

The pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents the expected salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings for commissionable roles. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, relevant certifications and training, and specific work location. Based on the factors above, Databricks anticipates utilizing the full width of the range. The total compensation package for this position may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above.

Schedule

Full-time position.

Location

San Francisco, CA.