High Performance Network Engineer AI Inference Network Interface Card
Summary
Network performance engineer optimizing NIC, PCIe, driver, kernel, and RDMA communication for single- and multi-host AI inference clusters — improving KV cache transfer, cross-node collective communication, and model-weight loading, while troubleshooting packet loss and latency. Core stack: Linux, RDMA (RoCEv2/InfiniBand), C/C++, plus Python/Go/Shell.
You will optimize NIC, PCIe, driver, kernel, and RDMA communication performance across single-host and multi-host AI inference clusters. You will improve critical inference communication paths, including KV cache transfer, cross-node collective communication, and model-weight loading. You will investigate packet loss, latency variation, slow nodes, and NIC failures; strengthen monitoring and automated diagnostics; collaborate with inference-framework, hardware, and NIC-vendor partners; and evaluate emerging networking technologies.
Responsibilities
- Optimize NIC, PCIe, driver, kernel, and RDMA communication performance
- Improve KV cache transfer, cross-node collective communication, and model-weight loading paths
- Investigate packet loss, latency variation, slow nodes, and NIC failures
- Analyze root causes across NICs, PCIe, drivers, kernels, and applications
- Build monitoring, alerting, automated diagnostics, and performance baselines
- Collaborate with inference-framework, hardware, and NIC-vendor partners
- Evaluate and implement emerging NIC, RDMA, and GPU-interconnect technologies
Requirements
- 3+ years of relevant experience
- Knowledge of computer networking and operating systems
- Knowledge of RDMA, including QP, Verbs, memory registration, and transport modes
- Experience with RoCEv2 or InfiniBand
- Knowledge of collective communication algorithms including Ring, Tree, Halving-Doubling, and All2All
- Knowledge of Linux networking and the effects of PCIe and NUMA on communication performance
- Ability to independently perform performance tuning and fault troubleshooting
- Proficiency in C or C++ and at least one of Python, Go, or Shell