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Cerebras

Software Engineer, Kernel Reliability

Cerebras is hiring a Software Engineer, Kernel Reliability. Level rates it ; you can apply on Cerebras.

Level's read on this job

  • On Level's scale, this software engineer role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
  • The posting mentions OpenAI, Python and C among its tools and skills.
  • Level classes it as a mid-level role.
  • Cerebras has 118 other open roles on Level.

AI in this role

Improve kernel reliability, debugging tools, and failure analysis for AI compute clusters and inference systems.

openaipythonc
ai-researchkerneldebuggingreliabilitysystems

Cerebras Systems builds the world's largest AI chip, 56 times larger than GPUs. This architecture allows Cerebras to deliver industry-leading training and inference speeds; over 10 times faster than GPU-based hyperscale cloud inference services.

This order of magnitude increase in speed is transforming the user experience of AI applications, unlocking real-time iteration and increasing intelligence via additional agentic computation.

Cerebras works with the leading model labs, global enterprises, and cutting-edge AI-native startups. OpenAI recently announced a multi-year partnership with Cerebras, to deploy 750 megawatts of scale, transforming key workloads with ultra high-speed inference.

About The Role

We're looking for a deeply technical, hands-on software engineer to join our on-field Kernel Reliability team. You'll help tackle a critical challenge: improving the reliability of our advanced compute clusters and the underlying inference, training, and internal production services. In this role, you'll work close to the code and design solutions that will scale with our rapidly growing system production and software service offerings. If you have strong fundamentals in systems, debugging, and failure analysis—and enjoy building tools and solving hard reliability problems—we want to hear from you. New college graduates are welcome.

Responsibilities

  • Contribute to the technical roadmap and execution for kernel-centric reliability of our internal and customer-facing systems.

  • Partner with System and Cluster Operations teams to reduce system and service downtime after failure through tooling, analysis, and hands-on debugging support.

  • Work with the Debug Team to enhance debug tools with the goal of speeding up failure analysis.

  • Collaborate with software teams to improve the software stack—including kernels—to improve on-field debugging and failure analysis.

  • Work with ASIC and hardware architecture teams to co-design next-generation architectures with reliability and ease of debug in mind.

  • Participate in incident response, root-cause analysis, and post-mortems; drive follow-ups that measurably improve reliability over time.

Skills & Qualifications

  • We recognize great engineers come from different backgrounds. If you're excited about the role, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every qualification.

  • Required (or demonstrated through projects/internships/coursework):

    • Strong programming skills in C/C++ and Python.

    • Solid foundations in operating systems, computer architecture, and systems programming fundamentals.

    • Ability to debug complex issues using logs, traces, and standard debugging workflows; interest in root-cause analysis.

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

  • Exposure to parallel and distributed programming (message passing, multicore, GPU, embedded, etc.).

  • Experience building or using debug/diagnostic tools (debuggers, core dump handling, tracing, sanitizers, profilers, etc.).

  • Familiarity with debugging distributed and parallel applications (deadlocks, livelocks, race conditions, etc.).

  • Knowledge of computer architecture concepts (instruction pipelining, multithreading, networking, memory systems, etc.).

  • Operations & Monitoring: familiarity with monitoring, incident response, and post-mortem culture.

Why Join Cerebras

People who are serious about software make their own hardware. At Cerebras, we have built a breakthrough architecture that is unlocking new opportunities for the AI industry. With dozens of model releases and rapid growth, we’ve reached an inflection point in our business. Members of our team tell us there are five main reasons they joined Cerebras:

  1. Build a breakthrough AI platform beyond the constraints of the GPU.

  2. Publish and open source their cutting-edge AI research.

  3. Work on one of the fastest AI supercomputers in the world.

  4. Enjoy job stability with startup vitality.

  5. Our simple, non-corporate work culture that respects individual beliefs.

Find out more about what it's like to work at Cerebras here!

Apply today and become part of the forefront of groundbreaking advancements in AI!

Cerebras Systems is committed to creating an equal and diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We believe inclusive teams build better products and companies. We try every day to build a work environment that empowers people to do their best work through continuous learning, growth and support of those around them.

This website or its third-party tools process personal data. For more details, click here to review our CCPA disclosure notice.

How we rate this

Software Engineer, Kernel Reliability at Cerebras rates 80 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.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ 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

AI ResearchKernelDebuggingReliabilitySystemsOpenAIPythonC

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Pay

Typical software engineer job
$167k

This posting doesn't list pay. Use the typical software engineer figure when pay comes up. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

  1. Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
  2. Tell me about a project where kernel was part of your work. What did you do?
  3. Tell me about a project where debugging was part of your work. What did you do?
  4. Tell me about a project where reliability was part of your work. What did you do?
  5. Tell me about a project where systems was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: AI Research, Kernel, Debugging, Reliability, and Systems. 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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