Senior AI Engineer, AI tools

NVIDIA is hiring a Senior AI Engineer, AI tools in Santa Clara, United States. It pays $224k-$357k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Level.

AI in this role

claudecursorcodex

ragfine-tuning

Today, NVIDIA is 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, encouraging environment where everyone is inspired to do their best work. Come join the team and see how we can make a lasting impact on the world.

What you’ll be doing:

Evaluate emerging and established AI tools, agent harnesses, and models on representative NVIDIA engineering workflows, comparing task success, output quality, reliability, latency, cost, and enterprise readiness.
Spot opportunities where AI is the best tool. Uncover gaps, and recommend AI-first approaches over conventional solutions grounded in hands-on evaluation of modern AI-native tools.
Design, implement, and validate reference workflows for coding, testing, code review, and troubleshooting using tools such as Codex, Claude, Cursor, Greptile, and CodeRabbit.
Introduce technologies enabling massively parallel systems to improve turnaround time by an order of magnitude.
Optimize for performance and cost by identifying bottlenecks across training, evaluation, and testing workflows and improve throughput, latency, and efficiency
Collaborate with AI product vendors to gain deep insights of the AI industry, and share them with leaders and developers internally.
Work with core and emerging tool vendors to evaluate new capabilities, influence product roadmaps, resolve adoption issues, and introduce useful features into NVIDIA's AI ecosystem.
Provide AI tool and model selection guidance, recommended configurations, workflow examples, onboarding materials, and hands-on training.

What we need to see:

MS in EE/CS or equivalent experience. 12+ years of work experience.
Strong understanding of large language models (LLMs), machine learning, and agentic AI, including how models, agent harnesses, context, and tool use affect end-to-end task outcomes.
Hands-on experience evaluating AI tools or models and applying LLMs to software engineering workflows, with skills in experiment design, benchmark development, reproducibility, and failure analysis.
Strong software engineering skills in Python, with experience in Java or Go and extensive scripting and automation experience.
Experience building evaluation pipelines, developer tooling, or full-stack applications, including API integration, data management, and deployment in cloud or enterprise environments.
Experience with tools for CI/CD setup such as Jenkins, Gitlab CI, Packer, Terraform, Artifactory, Ansible, Chef or similar tools.
Good understanding of distributed systems, understanding of microservice architecture and REST APIs.
Familiarity with software development, testing, code review, and build workflows, and the ability to translate evaluation results into clear technical recommendations and practical user guidance.
Ability to effectively work across organizational boundaries to enhance alignment and productivity between teams.

Ways to stand out from the crowd:

Industry thought leader in AI, influenced AI ecosystem to deliver forward looking solutions
Expertise in agent harnesses, tool calling, MCP, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), context management, or fine-tuning, and in evaluating their impact on complex engineering workflows.
Experience rolling out AI tools across engineering teams, collaborating with vendors, and turning emerging capabilities into measurable adoption and productivity improvements.
Experience developing large-scale distributed tooling, evaluation services, or observability systems with real-time constraints.
Strong collaborative and interpersonal skills, with a consistent record of guiding and influencing others in dynamic environments.

We have some of the most forward-thinking and versatile people in the world working for us and, due to unprecedented growth, our best-in-class engineering teams are rapidly growing. We are building a team that will truly change the world. If you are passionate about new technologies, care about software quality, and want to shape the future of AI tools and engineering productivity, we would love for you to join us.

Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and the pay of employees in similar positions. The base salary range is 224,000 USD - 356,500 USD.

You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.

Applications for this job will be accepted at least until October 13, 2026.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes.

NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive 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.

How we rate this

Senior AI Engineer, AI tools at NVIDIA rates 89 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.

Key facts

Senior AI Engineer, AI tools is an open job at NVIDIA.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The listed salary is $224k-$357k a year.
The role is based in US, CA, Santa Clara.
The job was posted on October 9, 2026.
Seniority: senior.
Applications are handled by NVIDIA. Apply on NVIDIA

Prepare for this job

A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

RAGFine-tuningClaudeCursorCodex

Questions you could be asked

How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
What are the limits of Claude that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
What's a project where you used Cursor hands-on?
Walk me through how you've used Codex in your day-to-day work.

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, Fine-tuning, Claude, Cursor, and Codex. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

Want an expert to read your CV for this job?

Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.

Get a free CV review Check your resume with the ATS resume checker

Get new AI engineer jobs (Builds AI ●●●●) by email

One email a week with the new AI engineer jobs (Builds AI ●●●●), each rated for how much AI is in the work. No recruiter spam, unsubscribe in one click.

Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.