Performance Modeling Engineer

Sr/Principal Software Engineer – Simulator DeveloperLocation: Santa Clara, CA | OnsiteA VC-backed, stealth-mode startup is building rack-level AI inference systems. The company’s differentiated SoC enables system-level innovations designed to maximize efficiency for data center-scale inference serving. The team is seeking highly skilled and motivated engineers to help build hardware and develop or extend open-source software to serve leading-edge models with extreme efficiency.What You'll Do:Lead or contribute as a member of a small team, depending on experience, developing performance and/or functional models that guide architecture decisions and accelerate hardware-software co-design in a fast-moving startup environment.ResponsibilitiesDesign, implement, and maintain processor simulators, including performance and/or functional modelsModel microarchitectural components such as pipelines, memory hierarchy, interconnects, and acceleratorsGenerate and curate traces to support targeted performance analysis goalsAnalyze simulation results to inform architecture tradeoffs and optimizationsCollaborate closely with architecture, hardware, and compiler teamsOwn critical simulation infrastructure from concept through production useExperience5+ years of software engineering experience, ideally in systems, architecture, or EDA domainsStrong C/C++ and Python skills with experience in large, complex codebasesExperience with processor simulators, architectural modeling, or performance analysis, especially from-scratch simulator developmentSolid understanding of computer architecture and microarchitectureAbility to work independently and make technical decisions in an early-stage startup environmentNice to HaveExperience with AI/ML accelerators, GPUs, or heterogeneous systemsFamiliarity with simulators such as gem5, gem5-SALAM, or proprietary modeling toolsBackground in hardware-software co-design or compilers