Senior Research Software Engineer (AI/ML)

Location: Cambridge, United States; hybrid/primarily remote within Harvard-registered payroll states. Work schedules and locations are determined by departmental operational needs.

Salary grade: 058. The corresponding salary range is not specified in the posting.

Company

hirify.global Central Administration supports the university's schools, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and surrounding communities through collaborative services.

What you will do

• Design, build, and maintain AI/ML systems and research software in Python and C/C++.
• Develop and optimize machine learning training and inference pipelines for accelerator-based systems.
• Implement high-performance kernels and apply loop transformations, vectorization, parallelization, and hardware-specific tuning.
• Integrate compiler and intermediate-representation frameworks such as MLIR, LLVM, XLA, IREE, TVM, and Halide.
• Support large-scale model training, profiling, debugging, deployment, testing, packaging, and cost/performance tuning in AWS and HPC environments.
• Collaborate with researchers, HDSI technical leadership, and AWS consulting partners to deliver reusable, production-grade research tooling.

Requirements

• At least seven years of post-secondary education or relevant work experience.
• Strong programming skills in Python, C, and C++.
• Experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, XLA, Triton, ONNX, Caffe2, or TensorRT.
• Experience with deep learning at scale, distributed AI/ML training, and performance optimization using tools such as PyTorch DDP, FSDP, or DeepSpeed.
• Experience with AWS or HPC environments, production Git workflows, research software lifecycles, and runtime profiling.
• Harvard is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position.

Nice to have

• Experience contributing to compiler infrastructure and optimization frameworks, including MLIR, LLVM, XLA, TVM, IREE, or Halide.
• Experience optimizing libraries or kernels with cuBLAS, cuDNN, CUTLASS, HIP, ROCm, or similar technologies.
• Experience with secure or privacy-constrained data environments, including HIPAA-aware engineering practices.
• Experience in climate, environmental science, health, astrophysics, or other interdisciplinary research.

Culture & Benefits

• Benefits-eligible, full-time, two-year term appointment ending June 30, 2028.
• Standard schedule of 35 hours per week, with occasional after-hours work or contact.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage starting on the first day.
• Paid time off, parental leave, retirement plans with university contributions, and family and caregiver support.
• Professional development opportunities, including tuition assistance and reimbursement.

Hiring process

• Pre-employment reference, identity, education, and background screenings are required.
• The position includes a three-month orientation and review period.