Principal Software Engineer, AI Networking

Location: US, CA, Santa Clara, US, CA, Remote

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

NVIDIA has been transforming computer graphics, PC gaming, and accelerated computing for more than 25 years. It’s a unique legacy of innovation that’s fueled by great technology—and amazing people. Today, we’re tapping into the unlimited potential of AI to define the next era of computing. An era in which our GPU acts as the brains of computers, robots, and self-driving cars that can understand the world. Doing what’s never been done before takes vision, innovation, and the world’s best talent. As an NVIDIAN, you’ll be immersed in a diverse, supportive environment where everyone is inspired to do their best work. Come join the team and see how you can make a lasting impact on the world.

Join NVIDIA, where the future is defined by our innovative advances in AI, computer graphics, and accelerated computing. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will lead the transformation of AI networking systems. You will apply your deep expertise to manage complex customer engagements and help develop our product and architecture direction. This role offers an outstanding opportunity to influence NVIDIA's networking technologies and make a significant impact on the industry!

What you'll be doing:

Lead the technical strategy for AI Factory networking deployments at strategic customers, including conducting architecture reviews, risk assessments, and crafting multi-phase execution plans.

Serve as the principal-level technical authority for embedded networking products like BlueField and ConnectX. This role also covers the surrounding technology ecosystem, including DOCA, RDMA, RoCE, and Infiniband.

• Lead deep technical engagements with hyperscalers and AI Factory customers, involving design-in, coding, bring-up, performance tuning, failure analysis, and production hardening.

• Partner with internal engineering, product, and architecture teams to transform customer needs into product features, reference architectures, tooling, and guidelines.

• Drive performance, reliability, and debuggability improvements across customer stacks and translate findings into actionable product, firmware, and software roadmap items.

What we need to see:

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience.

• 15+ years of relevant industry experience, including technical leadership across complex systems.

• Deep knowledge of networking protocols and distributed systems, with a strong understanding of RoCE/InfiniBand, L1–L4 fundamentals, and performance/latency tradeoffs.

• Proven low-level software expertise with proficiency in C/C++ and comfort debugging across firmware, driver, and user space.

• Demonstrated experience in high-performance networking and system-level debugging, including packet drops, retransmissions, congestion, QoS, ordering, and buffer management.

• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to clearly explain complex topics to engineers, PMs, and customer collaborators, and align cross-organizational teams toward a decision.

Ways To Stand Out from the crowd:

• Prior experience in customer-facing technical leadership at hyperscalers/CSPs/AI factories (or similarly complex production environments).

• Hands-on expertise with DPDK, DOCA, RDMA verbs, NCCL, CUDA-aware networking, congestion control, and performance tuning at scale.

• Experience building internal tools, telemetry, and automation that improve triage speed and operational excellence.

• Demonstrated innovation: patents, publications, hackathons, rapid prototyping, or shipping new architecture/features end-to-end.

• Experience leading multi-team initiatives across geo/time zones, with clear examples of influence without authority as well as eager and proactive in bringing to bear AI-powered tools to accelerate debugging, documentation, and day-to-day engineering efficiency while maintaining strong engineering judgment.

With competitive salaries and a generous benefits package, we are widely considered to be one of the technology world’s most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and hardworking people in the world working for us and, due to unprecedented growth, our exclusive engineering teams are rapidly growing. If you're a creative and autonomous engineer with a real passion for technology, we want to hear from you.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 272,000 USD - 431,250 USD.Applications for this job will be accepted at least until March 9, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy. 

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.