[Hiring] Staff/Principal Software Engineer – AI Applications @Axelera AI

Role Description

The Applications team develops the customer-facing components of Axelera AI’s Voyager SDK, including low-code model deployment, end-to-end pipeline development, and application integration and analytics. Customers use these tools to quickly evaluate, prototype, and build complete production AI solutions accelerated by Axelera AI devices. The Applications team develops cutting-edge development tools with simple APIs that ensure the solutions deployed by our customers reach the highest levels of performance and accuracy available in the market.

We are seeking an experienced, technically outstanding software engineer to take ownership of a significant area of the Applications stack. This is a Staff/Principal-level role for someone who can:

• Identify and execute on opportunities requiring strong technical judgement and difficult prioritisation.
• Push the boundaries of what’s technically achievable.
• Create reusable architectures that raise the bar for the wider team.
• Operate with significant autonomy, navigating ambiguity where clear playbooks don’t yet exist.

You will help shape the technical roadmap for the Applications team in partnership with commercial and product stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Owning the end-to-end technical strategy for a major area of the Voyager SDK’s application layer.
• Setting technical direction for image pre/post processing operators and decoders.
• Driving the integration of industry-standard model frameworks into the SDK.
• Defining company-wide metadata representations for common model types.
• Taking accountability for end-to-end pipeline latency and throughput across supported hardware platforms.
• Representing the Applications team’s technical capabilities to business stakeholders and customers.
• Mentoring and developing other engineers.
• Driving documentation standards and best practices across the team.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or equivalent, with a substantial track record (typically 8+ years) of hands-on experience in the semiconductor and/or AI industry.
• Deep, hands-on expertise with edge deployment frameworks such as OpenVINO or TensorRT.
• Experience with GPU computing APIs such as OpenCL and Vulkan.
• Strong track record applying model optimisation techniques such as quantization, compression and pruning.
• Expert-level proficiency in AI application development using Python, with extensive experience in ML libraries such as PyTorch and TensorFlow.
• Expert-level proficiency in Python/C++.
• Demonstrated ability to architect, build and deploy end-to-end pipelines with quantized models at scale.
• Experience in training models using transfer learning to leverage pre-trained models for new tasks.
• Experience with MLIR and ONNXRuntime a plus.
• A track record of navigating deep ambiguity and delivering outcomes without clear playbooks.
• Strong communication and influencing skills.
• Experience mentoring and developing other engineers.
• Proficient Linux skills.
• Practical knowledge of agile development using tools such as Jira, Git and GitHub.
• Self-motivated, with the ability to set technical direction and thrive with significant autonomy.

Location

• Work from one of our Axelera AI offices (Leuven in Belgium, Amsterdam and Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Zurich in Switzerland, Florence and Milan in Italy or Bristol in the United Kingdom).
• Work fully remotely from any European country (incl. the UK) you are already in.
• Relocate with us and work from Italy (Florence or Milan) or the Netherlands (Amsterdam or Eindhoven).
• Priority will be given to candidates who are interested in being based in Bavaria (Germany), Belgium or Italy.

Benefits

• Attractive compensation package, including a pension plan and extensive employee insurances.
• Option to get company shares.
• Open culture that supports creativity and continual innovation.
• Collaborative ownership and freedom with responsibility.