Machine Learning Engineer — Inference Optimization

About the Role

We’re looking for a Machine Learning Engineer to own and push the limits of model inference performance at scale. You’ll work at the intersection of research and production—turning cutting-edge models into fast, reliable, and cost-efficient systems that serve real users.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys deep technical work, profiling systems down to the kernel/GPU level, and translating research ideas into production-grade performance gains.

What You’ll Do

Optimize inference latency, throughput, and cost for large-scale ML models in production

Profile and bottleneck GPU/CPU inference pipelines (memory, kernels, batching, IO)

Implement and tune techniques such as

Quantization (fp16, bf16, int8, fp8)

KV-cache optimization & reuse

Speculative decoding, batching, and streaming

Model pruning or architectural simplifications for inference

Collaborate with research engineers to productionize new model architectures

Build and maintain inference-serving systems (e.g. Triton, custom runtimes, or bespoke stacks)

Benchmark performance across hardware (NVIDIA / AMD GPUs, CPUs) and cloud setups

Improve system reliability, observability, and cost efficiency under real workloads

What We’re Looking For

Strong experience in ML inference optimization or high-performance ML systems

Solid understanding of deep learning internals (attention, memory layout, compute graphs)

Hands-on experience with PyTorch (or similar) and model deployment

Familiarity with GPU performance tuning (CUDA, ROCm, Triton, or kernel-level optimizations)

Experience scaling inference for real users (not just research benchmarks)

Comfortable working in fast-moving startup environments with ownership and ambiguity

Nice to Have

Experience with LLM or long-context model inference

Knowledge of inference frameworks (TensorRT, ONNX Runtime, vLLM, Triton)

Experience optimizing across different hardware vendors

Open-source contributions in ML systems or inference tooling

Background in distributed systems or low-latency services

Why Join Us

Real ownership over performance-critical systems

Direct impact on product reliability and unit economics

Close collaboration with research, infra, and product

Competitive compensation + meaningful equity at Series A

A team that cares about engineering quality, not hype

Originally posted on Himalayas