Principal Software Engineer, ML & Media Infra (AI)

Location: US-based applicants only; must be within a commutable distance of the Palo Alto, California or San Francisco, California office and attend in-person collaboration 1–2 times per quarter. The position is not eligible for relocation assistance.

Base salary: $285,452–$449,541 USD annually; eligible for equity.

Company

hirify.global is a creative inspiration platform serving millions of people worldwide, with AI and ML supporting its product, advertising, content, and recommendation experiences.

What you will do

• Set the technical vision and roadmap for model training and serving, including reusable interfaces to data and feature infrastructure.
• Lead architectures for distributed training, fine-tuning, distillation, evaluation, CPU/GPU inference, content acquisition, media ingestion, and signal processing.
• Improve efficiency across data loading, distributed execution, GPU kernels and memory, compilation, quantization, scheduling, and capacity.
• Build reliable, observable platforms with strong quality guarantees and training/serving consistency.
• Partner with Ads, Core AI/ML, Content, Shopping Catalog, and GenAI teams to productionize models and improve hirify.global’s content ecosystem.
• Drive architecture decisions, migrations, operational standards, and mentoring across the organization while using AI-assisted development with rigorous correctness and data safeguards.

Requirements

• Track record of setting technical strategy and delivering company-wide infrastructure initiatives in ambiguous environments.
• Deep production expertise in distributed ML systems, including large-scale training and online inference.
• Strong GPU performance knowledge, including profiling, distributed execution, kernel and memory optimization, compilation, or quantization.
• Experience with AI/ML modeling, recommender systems, Ads ranking, retrieval, feature platforms, or similarly demanding ML workloads.
• Experience with content acquisition, such as crawlers, content understanding, or near-real-time data processing.
• Experience with search and recommendation systems or ad-serving systems.
• Strong systems programming and design skills in C++, Java, or Python.
• High ownership and sound judgment in reliability, security, cost, and operational excellence.
• Ability to use AI to improve speed while critically evaluating AI-assisted work and remaining accountable for correctness, quality, and sensitive data.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible working model with in-person collaboration required 1–2 times per quarter.
• Employment includes eligibility for equity and access to hirify.global benefits.
• Inclusive workplace and equal-opportunity employment practices.

Hiring process

• The interview process evaluates foundational skills, collaboration with AI, reasoning, approach, correctness, and responsible handling of data.