Pay
Higher than most similar jobs
$254K–$350K against $166K–$240K, the middle half of what similar US postings state.
From 1,279 postings in the last year. Stated ranges, not salaries paid.
Senior/Staff Software Engineer, ML Training Optimization
Foster City, CA
Live, first seen by us 19 days ago- Pay
USD 254,000–350,000/year — pay source
Salary 254,000 – 350,000 USD per year About Zoox
Read the full posting- Work setting
On-site — work setting source
Work setup in the employer’s posting: onsite
From the employer’s posting- Employment
Full-time — employment source
Employment type Full-time
Employment type in the employer’s posting: Full-time
From the employer’s posting
What you’ll work on
Full postingLead training performance work such as parallelism, mixed precision and GPU kernels
Own the multi-quarter technical roadmap for RL framework and RL performance
Profile and root-cause throughput bottlenecks across the compute and networking stack
Build custom kernels and benchmarks to validate performance gains
Mentor engineers and lead design reviews to raise the team's technical bar
From the employer’s posting
Lead the design, implementation, and operation of training performance optimizations (data/tensor/pipeline parallelism, mixed precision, gradient checkpointing, GPU kernels)
Own the technical strategy and multi-quarter roadmap for RL framework and RL performance optimization for driving foundation models.
Drive profiling and root-cause analysis of throughput bottlenecks across the compute, compiler, framework, and cluster-networking stack.
Build custom kernels and benchmarks that track and validate performance gains across the stack.
Mentor engineers and raise the team’s technical bar through design reviews and best practices.
What you’ll bring
All qualificationsCore experience
- 7+ years of total experience, including 4+ years on large-scale model training platforms, with a record of leading projects end to end.
- Deep experience with distributed training frameworks (Megatron-LM, TorchTitan) and efficiently utilizing GPU/accelerator clusters at scale.
- Experience with RL frameworks (Verl/MILES) and algorithms (GRPO, PPO).
- Experience with collective communication libraries (e.g., NCCL) and optimizing communication/compute overlap in multi-node training.
- Proficiency in Python or C++.
- Experience with ML compilers, performance tooling, or hardware/software co-design (GPU/TPU/accelerator architectures).
Qualification wording
7+ years of total experience, including 4+ years on large-scale model training platforms, with a record of leading projects end to end.
Deep experience with distributed training frameworks (Megatron-LM, TorchTitan) and efficiently utilizing GPU/accelerator clusters at scale.
Experience with RL frameworks (Verl/MILES) and algorithms (GRPO, PPO).
Experience with collective communication libraries (e.g., NCCL) and optimizing communication/compute overlap in multi-node training.
Proficiency in Python or C++.
Experience with ML compilers, performance tooling, or hardware/software co-design (GPU/TPU/accelerator architectures).
About Amazon
Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market.
In the employer’s words · Read in context
Posting record
Report an error- Status in our records
- Live
- First seen by us
- Oct 16, 202619 days ago
- Recorded sightings
- 35
- Last seen by us
- Nov 5, 2026
These dates show when we found the posting. Check the employer’s website to confirm it is still accepting applications.
How this job compares
Time since we first saw it
Day 19
Similar jobs usually come down between day 6 and day 70.
At Amazon, jobs usually come down by about day 69.
From 4,442 similar postings that came down, and 20 of Amazon’s. Coming down is not always a hire.
Amazon is hiring
24 open jobs
Open jobs by the week we first saw them, last 12 weeks.
- ML Engineer hiring is picking up
- Takes jobs down at a usual pace
- 4% of open jobs were reposted
See how this role fits your experience
Add your resume and we’ll mark which of these tools you already use, and point out anything in the posting that could rule you out.
- C++
- Python
- PyTorch
Where the posting names them
- Strong command of profiling tools (NVIDIA Nsight, PyTorch Profiler, or XLA/JAX profiling) to find and resolve training bottlenecks. - Proficiency in Python or C++. - Experience with ML compilers, performance tooling, or hardware/software co-design (GPU/TPU/accelerator architectures).
- Experience with collective communication libraries (e.g., NCCL) and optimizing communication/compute overlap in multi-node training. - Strong command of profiling tools (NVIDIA Nsight, PyTorch Profiler, or XLA/JAX profiling) to find and resolve training bottlenecks. - Proficiency in Python or C++.
Your next step
Complete your application on jobs.lever.co. The employer’s form will show what is required.
Applying through Lever
- No account needed: one form, and Lever reads your resume into the profile recruiters search.
Already applied? Track this application
About Amazon
- People
- About 1,207,759 in 2024.Benefit plan filings (Form 5500)
- Company
- Listed as AMZN.
- H-1B visas
- 6,217 approved for new hires in fiscal 2025.US Citizenship and Immigration Services
- Layoff notices
- Notices this year and last cover 988 people. The latest was filed January 29, 2026.State WARN notices
Demand for ML Engineer roles
New ML Engineer postings at the employers we follow are up 12% over the last 5 weeks compared with the 5 before.
Each bar is one week of new postings. The darkest bars are the last 5 weeks.
Counted from the hiring pages we’ve followed for at least five weeks, so employers we add don’t look like growth. Updated weekly.
About the role
We file this job under ML Engineer, by the work the posting describes.
ML engineers put machine learning models into products. They write the code that trains, ships, serves and monitors models so a recommendation or prediction works for real users.
Postings ask for strong Python and software engineering, a framework such as PyTorch, cloud services, and more and more often experience with large language models.
A data scientist often works out which model to build; an ML engineer makes it run reliably in production.
US government figures for computer and information research scientists
- Median yearly pay, May 2025
- $140,300
- Expected change, 2025 to 2035
- 21.8% more jobsagainst 3.5% for all jobs
The government has no code for ML engineers, so these figures are for the closest group, computer and information research scientists.
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025) and Employment Projections (2025 to 2035). Occupation code 15-1221.
Job description
Zoox is on a mission to reimagine transportation and build ground-up autonomous robotaxis that are safe, reliable, clean, and enjoyable for everyone. We’re still early in deploying on public roads, so this is a great time to join and have a significant impact. The ML Platform team enables innovation in large-scale Foundation models, VLMs, and VLAs to make autonomous driving as seamless as possible.
The Opportunity
Are you excited to own ML training optimization at Zoox and make the models that power autonomous driving train faster, cheaper, and at greater scale? You’ll set technical direction for distributed training, parallelism strategies, mixed-precision training, and RL on SOTA accelerators, especially for multi-modal VLA and VLM models. You’ll partner with all Autonomy teams (Perception, Prediction, Planner, Simulation, Collision Avoidance) and act as a force multiplier for our internal customers, while mentoring engineers and shaping the team’s roadmap as we expand into new ML domains. If you want to learn more about our stack behind autonomous driving, please look here. If you want to learn more about our ML Infrastructure, here is one of our past talks at re:Invent.
In this role, you will:
- Lead the design, implementation, and operation of training performance optimizations (data/tensor/pipeline parallelism, mixed precision, gradient checkpointing, GPU kernels) to scale VLM, VLA, and Foundation model training.
- Own the technical strategy and multi-quarter roadmap for RL framework and RL performance optimization for driving foundation models.
- Drive profiling and root-cause analysis of throughput bottlenecks across the compute, compiler, framework, and cluster-networking stack.
- Partner with ML researchers, data engineers, and hardware engineers to define requirements and make architectural decisions for large-scale training infrastructure.
- Build custom kernels and benchmarks that track and validate performance gains across the stack.
- Mentor engineers and raise the team’s technical bar through design reviews and best practices.
Qualifications
- 7+ years of total experience, including 4+ years on large-scale model training platforms, with a record of leading projects end to end.
- Deep experience with distributed training frameworks (Megatron-LM, TorchTitan) and efficiently utilizing GPU/accelerator clusters at scale.
- Experience with RL frameworks (Verl/MILES) and algorithms (GRPO, PPO).
- Experience with collective communication libraries (e.g., NCCL) and optimizing communication/compute overlap in multi-node training.
- Strong command of profiling tools (NVIDIA Nsight, PyTorch Profiler, or XLA/JAX profiling) to find and resolve training bottlenecks.
- Proficiency in Python or C++.
- Experience with ML compilers, performance tooling, or hardware/software co-design (GPU/TPU/accelerator architectures).
- Ability to influence across teams and communicate technical tradeoffs to both researchers and engineers.
Note: You do not have to meet all the requirements below to be considered for this position:
Salary
254,000 – 350,000 USD per year
About Zoox
Zoox is developing the first ground-up, fully autonomous vehicle fleet and the supporting ecosystem required to bring this technology to market. Sitting at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and design, Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. We’re looking for top talent that shares our passion and wants to be part of a fast-moving and highly execution-oriented team.
Accommodations
If you need an accommodation to participate in the application or interview process please reach out to accommodations@zoox.com or your assigned recruiter.
A Final Note:
You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Zoox, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
Employment type
Full-time
Source details
Source notes
Source excerptsSelected passages from the saved posting. Check the full description for conditions and exceptions.
- Pay
Salary 254,000 – 350,000 USD per year About Zoox
- Location & working pattern
Foster City, CA
Working pattern and location restrictions need checking in the full posting.
- Work authorization
No clear work-authorization passage found. Eligibility is unconfirmed.