Staff AI Inference Tools Engineer

About Modular

At Modular, a Qualcomm company, we’re on a mission to revolutionize AI infrastructure by systematically rebuilding the AI software stack from the ground up. Our team, made up of industry leaders and experts, is building cutting-edge, modular infrastructure that simplifies AI development and deployment. By rethinking the complexities of AI systems, we’re empowering everyone to unlock AI’s full potential and tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
If you’re passionate about shaping the future of AI and creating tools that make a real difference in people’s lives, we want you on our team. You can read about our culture and careers to understand how we work and what we value.

About the role:

At Modular we are building a next generation AI platform to power modern applications and facilitate access to cutting-edge hardware. The MAX framework is our developer-facing layer: it defines the APIs developers use to express models, integrate custom kernels, orchestrate execution, iterate on quality and ship systems into production.
As an engineer on the MAX Tools team you will build the developer tooling for Modular's AI inference stack to make the engineers who build and deploy AI models more productive. You will be working on tools to help people create, debug, and optimize models and kernels. Modular’s vertically integrated ML serving stack allows you to solve a uniquely diverse set of problems, and gives you especially broad scope for creating solutions. A growing part of our work is agent-native tooling: tools designed so that AI agents can profile, triage, and debug issues under engineer guidance. LOCATION: Candidates based UK are welcome to apply. You can work out of our office in Edinburgh or remotely from home. Onboarding for new hires is conducted in person in Edinburgh.

What you will do:

• Enhance the MAX developer experience by creating tools that can be part of traditional and agentic workflows, by surfacing data through the entire AI stack, and by supporting a widening list of heterogeneous hardware platforms.
• Design, build, and maintain key technologies that support the MAX framework, such as profiling and tracing tools, debuggers and associated tools to check correctness, and metrics and dashboards to monitor the performance and health of MAX deployments.
• Create agent-native tooling: tools that can be used by humans and agents alike, and the agentic workflows that go around them. Write agents to bring up models, to triage issues with running systems, and to profile and optimize based on real workloads.
• Connect MAX tools through the entire stack: by strengthening the tooling interfaces between MAX, Mojo, and the driver APIs they run on; and by integrating tool use cleanly with the orchestration layers above.
• Participate in design discussions and code reviews to uphold high engineering standards.
• Work directly with the kernel, model, and serving engineers who use your tools every day, and turn their recurring pain points into better tools.

What you bring to the table:

• Passion for creating exceptional developer experiences and an understanding of what makes great tools feel effortless.
• Experience designing, building, and shipping developer tools, developer infrastructure, or observability systems that other engineers rely on.
• Fluency in one or more systems/performance languages (C++, Rust, Go) and one or more user-facing languages (Python; familiarity with Mojo is a plus).
• Experience measuring software performance via profiling, tracing, or benchmarking, and the systems knowledge to analyze those results.
• Clear written communication and the ability to work independently in a distributed team.
• A user-focused mindset: you seek out the people who use your tools, learn their workflows, and prioritize what makes them more productive.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 4+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.

OR

• Master's degree in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 3+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.

OR

• PhD in Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or related field and 2+ years of Software Engineering or related work experience.

AND

• 2+ years of work experience with Programming Language such as Python, Mojo, Rust, C++, etc.

Helpful, but not required:

• Experience with GPU performance tooling (Nsight Systems/Compute, rocprof, Perfetto, or similar) or GPU programming (CUDA, ROCm).
• Knowledge of basic AI implementation and modeling techniques and familiarity with AI frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.
• Experience building tooling for AI agents (e.g. agent skills, MCP).

What Modular brings to the table:

• Amazing Team. We are a progressive and agile team with some of the industry’s best engineering and product leaders.
• World-class Benefits. In order to attract the best, we need to offer the best. Your benefits package may include comprehensive healthcare coverage, retirement and savings programs, employee stock purchase opportunities, paid time off, wellbeing resources, family support programs, and learning and development opportunities. Please note that specific benefit packages may vary based on your location, you can read more about benefits offered by Qualcomm here.
• Competitive Compensation. We offer very strong compensation packages, including RSU grants. We want people to be focused on their best work and believe in tailoring compensation plans to meet the needs of our workforce.
• Team Building Events. We organize regular team onsites and local meetups in Los Altos, CA as well as different cities. Traveling 2-4 times a year is expected for all roles.

Working at Modular will enable you to grow quickly as you work alongside incredibly motivated and talented people who have high standards, possess a growth mindset, and a purpose to truly change the world. The estimated base salary range for this role to be performed in the UK, is £99,600 - £150,000 GBP.
The salary for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of permissible, non-discriminatory job-related factors, which include but are not limited to education, training, work experience, business needs, or market demands. This range may be modified in the future. The total compensation for a candidate will also include annual target bonus, equity, and benefits.For candidates who fall outside of the listed requirements, we nevertheless encourage you to apply as we may have upcoming openings that are lower/higher level than the ones advertised.

Modular is proud to emphasize an equal opportunity, safe environment for people to do their best work. Modular is an affirmative action employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

If you require reasonable accommodations to participate in the interview process, please let your recruiter know, and we will work with you to meet your needs in compliance with the ADA.

This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.

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