Staff Software Engineer, Foundational Model Serving

Job title: Staff Software Engineer, Foundational Model Serving

About the Role Join Databricks' Foundation Model Serving as a Staff Engineer, shaping the product experience and core infrastructure for hosting and serving frontier AI model inference (open source models like Llama, Qwen, and GPT OSS as well as proprietary models like Claude and OpenAI GPT). While no prior ML/AI experience is required, we seek engineers who have owned high-scale, operationally sensitive systems and want to build LLM APIs and runtimes at scale. You’ll design and build high-throughput, low-latency inference systems on GPU workloads and influence architectural direction while collaborating across platform, product, infrastructure, and research teams.

What You'll Do

• Design and implement core systems and APIs powering Databricks Foundation Model Serving, ensuring scalability, reliability, and operational excellence.
• Partner with product and engineering leadership to define the technical roadmap and long-term architecture for serving workloads.
• Drive architectural decisions and trade-offs to optimize performance, throughput, autoscaling, and operational efficiency for GPU serving workloads.
• Contribute directly to key components across the serving infrastructure — from working in systems like vLLM and SGLang to creating token-based rate limiters and optimizers — ensuring smooth and efficient operations at scale.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, platform, and research teams to translate customer needs into reliable and performant systems.
• Establish best practices for code quality, testing, and operational readiness, and mentor other engineers through design reviews and technical guidance.
• Represent the team in cross-organizational technical discussions and influence Databricks’ broader AI platform strategy.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience leading high-scale operationally sensitive backend systems.
• A track record of up-leveling teams engineering excellence.
• Strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and system design as applied to large-scale, low-latency serving systems.
• Proven ability to deliver technically complex, high-impact initiatives that create measurable customer or business value.
• Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across teams in fast-moving environments.
• Strategic and product-oriented mindset with the ability to align technical execution with long-term vision.
• Passion for mentoring, growing engineers, and fostering technical excellence.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $192,000—$260,000 USD (Local Pay Range). The total compensation package may also include eligibility for annual performance bonus, equity, and the benefits listed above.
• Databricks offers comprehensive benefits; location-specific details can be found on the regional benefits page.