Principal Systems Software Engineer, LPU

Details

NVIDIA’s LPX System Software team builds the foundational software that turns a novel deterministic compute architecture into a platform that compiler teams and data center operators can rely on. The team develops hardware abstraction layers, core system libraries, drivers, and runtime components in Rust, with a focus on memory safety, explicit ownership, and long-lived API stability.

As a principal engineer, you will set technical direction for the surfaces you own and shape the overall architecture alongside other principal engineers. You will design hardware abstraction layers, runtime interfaces, and data-movement pipelines; drive complex reliability and bring-up issues to root cause; and establish abstractions, patterns, tooling, and agent-assisted engineering practices that increase team productivity.

Responsibilities

• Shape the architecture of hardware abstraction layers and core system libraries, and own API contracts for the components you lead.
• Design and implement drivers, runtimes, and data-movement and aggregation pipelines for workloads running on novel silicon.
• Build runtime interfaces for launching, monitoring, and managing workloads at production scale.
• Lead triage of difficult sequencing, initialization, and cross-component runtime failures, producing written root-cause analyses.
• Lead platform bring-up and new product introduction for new boards and silicon in partnership with hardware engineering, compiler teams, and data center operations.
• Establish agent-assisted engineering practices, reusable abstractions, diagnostics, and documentation.
• Communicate architecture and design tradeoffs clearly in writing and diagrams to audiences ranging from engineers to executive staff.

Requirements

• A master’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or a related STEM field, or equivalent experience, with 12+ years of production systems software experience.
• Deep systems-programming expertise, with Rust as the primary language for low-level work.
• Experience shipping production Rust at the hardware or kernel boundary, including drivers, firmware, runtimes, or similar systems software.
• Experience designing and evolving libraries and APIs intended to be supported for years, including ABI and compatibility discipline.
• Fluency working in large, multi-repository codebases with layered dependencies.
• Demonstrated leadership in triaging difficult reliability issues and producing clear written root-cause analyses.
• Low-level platform experience with firmware and boot flows, RTOS, BMCs, MCUs, RISC-V, or closely related systems software.
• Linux driver or kernel-adjacent experience, such as VFIO or similar subsystems.
• Hardware bring-up and system triage experience, including fault analysis, diagnostics, and validation in laboratory environments.
• Experience building with AI coding agents and designing work that is amenable to agent-assisted development while maintaining appropriate human oversight.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building Rust systems software at hyperscaler scale or at a Rust-native hardware company.
• Distributed systems experience, including gRPC and RPC frameworks, coordination and telemetry patterns, or MPI.
• Inference systems and token-serving experience, such as vLLM or similar serving and runtime stacks.
• Experience shipping and supporting customer-facing SDKs, including documentation and ABI compatibility practices.
• Experience with CI/CD and release workflows, monitoring and alerting, Kubernetes, and data center operational workflows.

Benefits

• Base salary range of $272,000–$431,250 USD per year, determined by location, experience, and compensation for similar positions.
• Eligibility for equity and benefits.
• NVIDIA is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive work environment.