Senior Systems Software Engineer - Machine Learning
NVIDIA is hiring a Senior Systems Software Engineer - Machine Learning in Santa Clara, United States. It pays $152k-$242k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on NVIDIA.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this software engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
- The posting mentions computer vision among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a senior role.
- NVIDIA has 2,600+ other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
NVIDIA has been transforming computer graphics, PC gaming, accelerated computing, and machine learning for more than 25 years. It’s a unique legacy of innovation 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.
We’re hiring a Deep Learning Engineer with strong experience in generative AI, LLMs/VLMs, computer vision, and agentic systems. If you’ve spent more time than you’d like to admit building workflows to populate data and/or diversify/expand your dataset, you’ll likely feel at home here. Bonus points if you’ve worked with 3D computer vision (extra bonus if you actually enjoyed it). The team is a balanced mix of engineers and scientists, and we care about both rigor and actually getting things out the door. The culture is collaborative, low-ego, and built around ownership. If you enjoy building systems that get used—and working with people who know when to debate and when to just run the experiment—this jobs is for you.
What you will be doing:
Convert research into real products (not just slide decks or notebooks)
Help build workflows that diversify datasets and/or populate data
Ship machine learning workflows/pipelines fast and iterate faster
Leverage LLM/VLM and agents in the data generation pipeline
Define evaluation criteria and run offline evals before any model or prompt change reaches production
What we need to see:
Masters degree (or equivalent experience) or preferably a PhD degree in Computer Science or a related field with 5+ years of experience
Solid mathematical and algorithmic foundation and proven expertise demonstrated through research publications, internships, or significant project experience.
Strong background in computer vision and deep learning.
Excellent programming skills in Python and C/C++.
Excellent software engineering fundamentals.
Ability to develop code in Unix/Linux environments.
Excellent written, visual, and verbal communication skills to present performance challenges, tradeoffs, and architectural alternatives.
Strong collaboration skills to partner with other teams.
Ways to stand out from the crowd:
Experience designing and operating multi-agent pipelines in production, including handling non-deterministic failures, retry logic, and tool-call error recovery"
Shipped a product feature backed by a VLM (e.g., image captioning, document understanding) — including handling inference latency, cost-per-call tradeoffs, and degraded-mode fallbacks
Shipped AI-powered features to real users — not just prototyped with agent frameworks. If your experience is primarily personal projects or hackathons, this role may not be the right fit yet.
NVIDIA is 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. If you're creative and autonomous, we want to hear from you!
Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and other objective job-related factors. The expected base salary ranges for this position are:152,000 USD – 241,500 USD for Level 3; and 184,000 USD – 287,500 USD for Level 4.
You will also be eligible for equity and benefits.
Applications for this job will be accepted at least until November 16, 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 Systems Software Engineer - Machine Learning at NVIDIA rates 93 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.
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. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $152k
- Typical software engineer job
- $167k
This posting starts 9% below the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
- How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
- Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Computer vision. 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.
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