Talent.com
CUDA Kernel Engineer
CUDA Kernel EngineerPRAGMATIKE • San Francisco, California, United States
CUDA Kernel Engineer

CUDA Kernel Engineer

PRAGMATIKE • San Francisco, California, United States
2 days ago
Job type
  • Full-time
  • Quick Apply
Job description

Location : Cambridge, MA (Eastern Time / UTC -4) Relocation package available

Start date : ASAP

Languages : English (required)

About the Role

Pragmatike is hiring on behalf of a fast-growing AI startup recognized as a Top 10 GenAI company by GTM Capital , founded by MIT CSAIL researchers.

We are searching for a CUDA Kernel Engineer who has hands-on experience developing and optimizing NVIDIA CUDA kernels from scratch . You will work on the GPU performance layer powering large-scale, high-throughput AI systems used by Fortune 500 customers.

This role is ideal for someone who deeply understands NVIDIA GPU architecture, memory hierarchy, warp-level execution, and profiling workflows not someone coming from generic hardware, FPGA, or non-NVIDIA compute backgrounds. You will directly influence the GPU efficiency, throughput, and scalability of mission-critical AI systems.

What Youll Do

  • Design, implement, and optimize custom CUDA kernels for NVIDIA GPUs , with a focus on maximizing occupancy, memory throughput, and warp efficiency.
  • Profile GPU workloads using tools such as N sight Compute, Nsight Systems, nvprof, and CUDA‐MEMCHECK .
  • Analyze and eliminate performance bottlenecks including warp divergence, uncoalesced memory access, register pressure, and PCIe transfer overhead.
  • Improve GPU memory pipelines (global, shared, L2, texture memory) and ensure proper memory coalescing.
  • Collaborate closely with AI systems, model acceleration, and backend distributed systems teams.
  • Contribute to GPU architecture decisions, kernel libraries, and internal performance-engineering best practices.

What Were Looking For

  • Proven track record building NVIDIA CUDA kernels from scratchnot just calling existing libraries.
  • Strong ability to optimize kernels (tiling strategies, occupancy tuning, shared memory design, warp scheduling).
  • Deep understanding of CUDA threads, warps, blocks, and grids, GPU memory hierarchy and memory coalescing, as well as warp divergence (how to detect, analyze, and mitigate it)
  • Experience diagnosing PCIe bottlenecks and optimizing host-device transfers (pinned memory, streams, batching, overlap).
  • Familiarity with C++, CUDA runtime APIs, and GPU debugging / profiling tooling.
  • Bonus Points

  • Experience with multi-GPU or distributed GPU systems (NCCL, NVLink, MIG).
  • Background in GPU acceleration for ML frameworks or HPC workloads.
  • Knowledge of model inference optimization (TensorRT, CUDA Graphs, CUTLASS).
  • Exposure to compiler-level optimization or PTX / SASS analysis.
  • Startup experience or comfort working in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
  • Why This Role Will Pivot Your Career

  • Research pedigree : MIT CSAIL founders recognized for breakthrough AI and systems contributions.
  • Customer impact : Deploy AI solutions powering Fortune 500 clients .
  • Industry momentum : Lab alumni have led high-value acquisitions (MosaicML Databricks, Run : AI Nvidia, W&B CoreWeave).
  • Funding & growth : Oversubscribed seed round, next funding in 2026.
  • Career growth & influence : Lead AI initiatives, optimize pipelines, and directly impact production AI systems at scale .
  • Culture & autonomy : Own critical systems while collaborating with world-class engineers.
  • Aspirational impact : Solve GPU / AI performance challenges few engineers ever face.
  • Benefits

  • Competitive salary & equity options
  • Sign-on bonus
  • Health, Dental, and Vision
  • 401k
  • Pragmatike is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants without discrimination. We recruit on behalf of our clients and prohibit discrimination and harassment based on race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.We are committed to a fair and inclusive hiring process. We process your personal data solely for recruitment purposes, in accordance with applicable privacy laws, and maintain reasonable safeguards to protect your information. Your data may be shared with our client(s) for hiring consideration, but will not be disclosed to third parties outside of the recruitment process.

    Create a job alert for this search

    Engineer • San Francisco, California, United States

    Similar jobs
    GPU Systems Engineer - HPC / Parallel Computing

    GPU Systems Engineer - HPC / Parallel Computing

    Vast.ai • San Francisco, CA, US
    Full-time
    AI projects and businesses all over the world.We are democratizing and decentralizing AI computing—reshaping our future for the benefit of humanity. We are a small, growing, and highly motivat...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    PyTorch Operator - ML Engineer

    PyTorch Operator - ML Engineer

    Mercor • San Francisco, CA, US
    Full-time
    Mercor is seeking experienced PyTorch experts who excel in extending and customizing the framework at the operator level. Ideal contributors are those who deeply understand PyTorch’s dispatch ...Show more
    Last updated: 21 days ago • Promoted
    GPU Performance Engineer - 5-10x Speedups with CUDA

    GPU Performance Engineer - 5-10x Speedups with CUDA

    Genmo Inc. • San Francisco, CA, United States
    Full-time
    A video generation research lab is seeking an experienced GPU Performance Engineer to optimize their model serving stack and maximize performance on H100 infrastructure. The role involves profiling ...Show more
    Last updated: 18 hours ago • Promoted • New!
    Software Engineer - C++ GPU Performance

    Software Engineer - C++ GPU Performance

    Zoox • Foster City, CA, US
    Full-time
    Zoox is building the world's most advanced self-driving hardware and software solution.The efficiency demands of such a system require an expert fine tuning of both the compute hardware archite...Show more
    Last updated: 6 days ago • Promoted
    AI Kernel Engineer

    AI Kernel Engineer

    Quadric, Inc • Burlingame, California, United States
    Full-time
    Quadric has created an innovative general purpose neural processing unit (GPNPU) architecture.Quadric's co-optimized software and hardware is targeted to run neural network (NN) inference workloads...Show more
    Last updated: 17 days ago • Promoted
    Kettle Engineer

    Kettle Engineer

    VirtualVocations • Oakland, California, United States
    Full-time
    A company is looking for a Kettle Engineer Level 5.Key Responsibilities Install, configure, harden, and upgrade Kettle / PDI components across development and production environments Migrate, re-e...Show more
    Last updated: 2 days ago • Promoted
    GPU Systems Engineer

    GPU Systems Engineer

    SLR Search • San Francisco, CA, US
    Full-time
    Architect the foundation of the future's most performance-critical cloud infrastructure.Starting Salary targeting $200,000 - $280,000. Comprehensive medical, dental, vision.GPU Systems Engineer ...Show more
    Last updated: 16 days ago • Promoted
    Full-Stack Engineer

    Full-Stack Engineer

    Renegade • San Francisco, CA, US
    Full-time
    Renegade is building an unstoppable network for the anonymous exchange of value.Our core permissionless protocol, the Renegade dark pool, solves many problems in current decentralized exchange desi...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    Neurosurgery (Complex Spine) Opportunity- Redwood City

    Neurosurgery (Complex Spine) Opportunity- Redwood City

    HealthEcareers - Client • Redwood City, CA, USA
    Full-time
    The Permanente Medical Group, Inc.Northern and Central California and a 80-year tradition of providing quality medical care. The Permanente Medical Group is currently actively seeking a .A FEW REASO...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    Systems Engineer V

    Systems Engineer V

    iSoftTek Solutions Inc • San Francisco, CA, US
    Full-time
    Location : San Francisco, CA 94107.Staff / Principal SDE : Sensor orchestration and data transfer.Develop real-time orchestration software to start, run, and manage data capture from deployed sensors.Q...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    Sustaining Engineer II

    Sustaining Engineer II

    Jupiter Endovascular • Menlo Park, CA, US
    Full-time
    Imagine a world where you could bring the precision and control of surgery to catheter-based therapies.For decades, endovascular procedures have been constrained by the technological limitations of...Show more
    Last updated: 9 days ago • Promoted
    Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

    Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

    Catalyst Labs • Menlo Park, CA, US
    Full-time
    Catalyst Labs is a specialized talent partner with a focus on recruiting top-tier engineers across Software, Data, and AI-driven domains. We are deeply embedded in our clients’ technical hirin...Show more
    Last updated: 4 days ago • Promoted
    Senior Systems Engineer, Modeling Focus

    Senior Systems Engineer, Modeling Focus

    Atomic Machines • Emeryville, CA, US
    Full-time
    Atomic Machines is ushering in a new era of micromanufacturing with its Matter Compiler™ technology platform.This platform enables new classes of micromachines to be designed and built by pro...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    Performance ML Engineer : CUDA, GPU Systems

    Performance ML Engineer : CUDA, GPU Systems

    Relace • San Francisco, CA, United States
    Full-time
    A tech company specializing in ML infrastructure is seeking a Machine Learning Engineer who excels at making models faster and more efficient through performance tuning and optimization.The ideal c...Show more
    Last updated: 20 days ago • Promoted
    Mechatronics Engineer

    Mechatronics Engineer

    Ocean Power Technologies Inc • Richmond, CA, US
    Full-time
    VP of Technology & Innovation.OPT) provides intelligent maritime solutions and services that enable safer, cleaner, and more productive ocean operations for the defense and security, oil and ga...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    Senior Software Engineer, Compute Infrastructure

    Senior Software Engineer, Compute Infrastructure

    Rigetti Computing • Berkeley, CA, US
    Full-time
    Rigetti Computing is building the world’s most powerful computers to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.We believe this technology will fundamentally change the world for the bette...Show more
    Last updated: 30+ days ago • Promoted
    Forward Deployed Engineer

    Forward Deployed Engineer

    Lovefreedom Solution • San Francisco, CA, US
    Full-time
    We’re hiring for a Forward Deployed Engineer.It’s a multi-faceted role that will require all skills from programming to project management to people coordination.You will be inside the ...Show more
    Last updated: 5 days ago • Promoted
    AI Kernel Engineer

    AI Kernel Engineer

    quadric, Inc • Burlingame, CA, US
    Full-time
    Quick Apply
    Quadric has created an innovative general purpose neural processing unit (GPNPU) architecture.Quadric's co-optimized software and hardware is targeted to run neural network (NN) inference workloads...Show more
    Last updated: 18 days ago