Software Engineering Director - Inference Platform

The era of pervasive AI has arrived. In this era, organizations will use generative AI to unlock hidden value in their data, accelerate processes, reduce costs, drive efficiency and innovation to fundamentally transform their businesses and operations at scale. SambaNova Suite™ is the first full-stack, generative AI platform, from chip to model, optimized for enterprise and government organizations. Powered by the intelligent SN40L chip, the SambaNova Suite is a fully integrated platform, delivered on-premises or in the cloud, combined with state-of-the-art open-source models that can be easily and securely fine-tuned using customer data for greater accuracy. Once adapted with customer data, customers retain model ownership in perpetuity, so they can turn generative AI into one of their most valuable assets. About the Role We help enterprises and service providers host their own AI inference platforms, powered by our state-of-the-art RDU (Reconfigurable Dataflow Unit) hardware architecture. Our cloud-agnostic, enterprise-grade inference serving platform enables seamless deployment, management, and scaling of foundation model workloads at production scale. As an Engineering Director on the SambaStack team, you will lead a high-performing team of engineers while remaining a hands-on technical contributor. You will be responsible for the growth and effectiveness of your team, the technical quality of their output, and driving key engineering initiatives while continuing to contribute directly on the platform's most important challenges. This is a high-impact, high-visibility role combining: People leadership and team development AI infrastructure Enterprise software Systems architecture and design Responsibilities People & Team Leadership Lead, grow, and inspire a software team, fostering a culture of technical excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement Own hiring for your team: define roles, assess candidates, and build a diverse, high-performing engineering organization Drive the career development of your engineers through regular 1:1s, meaningful feedback, and clear growth plans Set clear goals and expectations, track team progress, and remove blockers to keep the team executing effectively Partner with Product, ML, QA, and DevOps leadership to align team priorities with broader organizational objectives Technical Contribution Contribute directly as a software engineer: designing systems, writing code, and leading implementation on critical platform initiatives Participate in and lead design reviews, providing authoritative technical guidance on major features and cross-cutting changes Establish and uphold engineering standards, best practices, and coding quality across the team Proactively identify and drive the resolution of systemic risks: performance bottlenecks, reliability gaps, and scaling constraints Stay current on emerging technologies and AI inference trends to inform the team's technical direction Required Qualifications 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 2+ years leading and managing engineering teams Demonstrated ability to manage, develop, and hire strong engineers while remaining a hands-on technical contributor Strong technical depth in backend systems built with Python, Go, or Rust Experience with AI inference serving, orchestration, and the infrastructure challenges of LLM workloads at production scale Proven ability to drive engineering excellence across an engineering team Excellent communication skills: able to work effectively with engineers, cross-functional partners, and senior leadership Experience running iterative engineering processes in a fast-paced environment Preferred Qualifications Experience with Kubernetes ecosystem tooling, including Operators and Helm Charts Background in ML application optimization and productionization Experience building or managing teams that deliver cloud-native platforms for enterprise customers Familiarity with AI coding assistants…