Principal Network Architect (AI Hardware)

Location: Full-time onsite in Austin, Texas or Sunnyvale, California

Salary: $250,000–$300,000 per year plus equity

Company

hirify.global is an AI hardware startup developing silicon photonics and programmable metasurface technology for highly efficient, high-performance AI inference.

What you will do

• Own the end-to-end datacenter scale-out data path architecture from the Linux host networking stack through the EIC PCIe bridge and third-party NICs to DMA into HBM.
• Define transport and offload architecture for RoCEv2 and Ultra Ethernet Transport.
• Specify peer-to-peer DMA topology, PCIe ACS policies, and queue and completion semantics for the runtime.
• Lead NIC vendor selection and technical engagement with networking silicon partners.
• Model collective communication performance for distributed inference workloads.
• Own the roadmap for a future hirify.global DPU and later scale-up fabric, while mentoring engineers and representing hirify.global in standards bodies.

Requirements

• 10+ years of datacenter networking architecture experience, including RDMA transports deployed at scale.
• Deep knowledge of Linux host networking, kernel networking, VFIO, DPDK or libfabric, and IOMMU/IOVA behavior.
• Strong PCIe knowledge covering root complexes, endpoints, bridges, peer-to-peer transactions, ACS, and Gen5/Gen6 protocols.
• Experience with merchant NIC and switch silicon and the ability to write implementable architecture specifications for digital design and software teams.
• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• Excellent communication skills and experience leading cross-functional technical discussions.

Nice to have

• Participation in the Ultra Ethernet Consortium or a comparable standards body.
• DPU or SmartNIC architecture experience and congestion-control design experience.
• Experience bringing a novel accelerator into a production datacenter network.
• Familiarity with NCCL, RCCL, or equivalent collective communication libraries and distributed inference serving.
• Experience with hyperscaler qualification and deployment processes.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative engineering environment focused on photonics, AI hardware, and datacenter computing.
• 100% coverage of base health plan premiums for employees and dependents, with HSA contributions.
• Unlimited paid time off.
• 401(k) matching and stock option opportunities.
• Dental, vision, life, hospital, critical illness, and accident insurance options.
• Personalized benefits plans with cash-back options for unused coverage.