Software Engineer, ML Training Optimization
Foster City, CA$177k - $270kFull-timePosted 4d ago
About the role
Role focused on accelerating ML training for large-scale models (VLMs, VLAs, and Foundation models) at Zoox, through distributed training, mixed-precision, and runtime optimizations, collaborating with autonomy teams and ML researchers.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and operate cutting-edge ML training performance optimization techniques — distributed training (data/tensor/pipeline parallelism), mixed-precision, gradient checkpointing, and GPU kernels — to scale VLM, VLA, and Foundational models training efficiency.
- Work on RL framework and RL performance optimization for driving foundation model
- Profile and debug training throughput bottlenecks across the compute, compiler, framework, and cluster-networking stack.
- Collaborate closely with ML researchers, data engineers, and hardware engineers to define requirements and align on architectural decisions for large-scale training infrastructure.
- Implement custom kernels and build benchmarks to track and validate training-performance optimizations across the stack.
Qualifications
- 4+ years of total experience, including 2+ years working on large-scale model training platforms.
- Experience with distributed training frameworks (Megatron-LM, TorchTitan), efficiently utilizing GPU/accelerator clusters at scale.
- Experience with RL framework such as Verl/MILES and RL algorithms(GRPO, PPO)
- Experience with collective communication libraries (e.g., NCCL) and optimizing communication/compute overlap in multi-node training.
- Experience using profiling tools (NVIDIA Nsight, PyTorch Profiler, or XLA/JAX profiling) to identify and resolve training bottlenecks.
- Proficient in Python or C++.
- Experience with ML compilers, performance tooling, or hardware/software co-design (e.g., GPU/TPU/accelerator architectures).
Skills
Required:Distributed trainingRL frameworks and algorithmsProfiling and debugging performanceC++ / Python
Nice to have:ML compilers / hardware co-design
Benefits
- paid time off (sick leave, vacation, bereavement)
- unpaid time off
- Zoox Stock Appreciation Rights
- Amazon RSUs
- health insurance
- long-term care insurance
- long-term and short-term disability insurance
- life insurance
Last updated Oct 21, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Zoox
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Zoox is a purpose-built autonomous vehicle designed for riders, not drivers. Learn more about the Zoox robotaxi and the future of ride-hailing.
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