Full-Time

Senior Software Engineer

Kernel & Device Drivers

SambaNova Systems

SambaNova Systems

201-500 employees

Enterprise AI platform with hardware stack

Compensation Overview

$120k - $200k/yr

Austin, TX, USA + 1 more

More locations: San Jose, CA, USA

In Person

Category
Software Engineering (1)
Required Skills
Bash
Python
Git
Docker
Jenkins
C/C++
Linux/Unix

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Requirements
  • BS/MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field
  • 5+ years of experience in kernel or low-level system software development
  • Familiar with Linux kernel, drivers, user space libraries, and applications with strong Linux fundamentals
  • Strong C/C++ programming and debugging skills; scripting experience (Python, shell)
  • Experience with high-speed IO or interconnects such as PCIe, Ethernet, or similar technologies
  • Experience with system bring-up and hardware-software co-debug
  • Experience with manufacturing test flows
  • Familiarity with development tools such as Git, Docker, Jenkins, or Bazel
  • Familiarity with build systems and toolchains (GCC, LLVM, Make, CMake)
  • Strong ownership and ability to drive issues to resolution
  • Clear communicator with a collaborative, problem-solving mindset
Responsibilities
  • Develop and maintain kernel-space drivers for high-speed IO and memory subsystems
  • Enable platform bring-up and support driver integration across new silicon and system configurations
  • Write clean, maintainable, production-quality code and drive code reviews
  • Support system bring-up from early silicon through production
  • Debug complex issues across kernel, firmware, and hardware layers
  • Drive issues to root cause and resolution in collaboration with cross-functional teams
  • Support PHY initialization and validation across high-speed interfaces
  • Debug issues related to IO, memory, and PHY subsystems in coordination with hardware teams
  • Interpret hardware specifications and schematics to guide bring-up and debug
  • Develop tools and frameworks for performance analysis, validation, and manufacturing test
  • Identify system bottlenecks and implement optimizations across driver and system layers
  • Enable post-silicon validation through software automation and infrastructure
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience with PHY bring-up and initialization
  • Ability to read and understand hardware specifications and register-level documentation
  • Exposure to pre-silicon validation (FPGA, emulation) and post-silicon bring-up
  • Familiarity with board schematics and low-level hardware interaction
  • Solid debugging skills using logs, trace tools (GDB), JTAG, or hardware debuggers
  • Background in high-performance or accelerator-based systems

Generating company summary.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Series F

Total Funding

$2.5B

Headquarters

Palo Alto, California

Founded

2017

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • JPMorgan Chase selected SambaNova for secure on-prem inference, signaling enterprise shift from cloud.
  • $1B Series F at $11B valuation in July 2026 reflects 5x growth in five months.
  • SN50 delivers 5x faster speed and 3x lower total cost of ownership than GPUs for agentic AI.

What critics are saying

  • Intel could pivot to sell Gaudi-based inference systems to JPMorgan, SoftBank, and Saudi Aramco within 12–18 months.
  • Nvidia's Groq licensing deal erodes premium inference differentiation and displaces SN50 roadmap in enterprise clusters by 6–12 months.
  • If AI chip IPOs stall in 2027, SambaNova faces liquidity crunch and forced sale at distressed valuation within 6–12 months.

What makes SambaNova Systems unique

  • SN50 RDU chip is purpose-built for agentic inference with three-tier memory architecture.
  • Heterogeneous platform combines Nvidia H200 GPUs for prefill with SN50 RDUs for decode.
  • Single-rack deployment fits multi-trillion-parameter models without quantization at full 16-bit precision.

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Benefits

Flexible PTO in US

Parental Leave

Benefits (medical, dental and vision)

Flexible Spending Accounts

401k/Pensions

Gym Access

Flexible Working Hours

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

-2%

1 year growth

-2%

2 year growth

1%
SambaNova
Jun 12th, 2026
SambaNova names engineering and finance leaders to accelerate growth.

SambaNova names engineering and finance leaders to accelerate growth. by SambaNova June 12, 2026 SAN JOSE, Calif. - June 12, 2026 - SambaNova, a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, today announced the appointment of Matt Padfield as Chief Financial Officer and Rich Heaton as Executive Vice President of Software. The appointments come as SambaNova enters a new phase of scale, driven by surging demand for premium inference and agentic AI. "In a market that moves this fast, you need leaders who are wired for scale, speed, and ambition. Matt and Rich bring exactly that. We're building something rare at SambaNova - the leading premium inference chip, accelerating customer demand, and momentum that's only growing. Welcome to the team," said Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO of SambaNova. Matt Padfield, Chief Financial Officer Matt joins SambaNova to build and lead the financial infrastructure that will support the company's next stage of growth, from operational rigor to strategic decision-making and capital allocation. Padfield brings deep finance leadership from high-growth semiconductor and technology companies, most recently as Group Vice President of Corporate FP&A at Coherent, and previously VP of FP&A and Corporate Development at Synaptics, where he served in an acting CFO capacity and led $1B+ in M&A activity. "SambaNova is at a profound inflection point, driven by proven technology and explosive market demand," said Matt Padfield. "I'm excited to build a financial architecture that acts as a strategic engine for expansion, ensuring we optimize capital allocation, accelerate operational velocity, and translate our technological advantages into long-term value." Rich Heaton, Executive Vice President of Software Rich Heaton will lead the company's software organization with the mandate to accelerate the software platform as SambaNova's enterprise deployments surge in volume and complexity. Rich brings 20+ years of experience leading large-scale engineering organizations, most recently as Director of Software at AWS, where he founded and grew the Neuron SDK organization, delivering the ML acceleration stack powering AWS Trainium and Inferentia. He has held C-level roles at venture-backed startups with successful exits and led a global engineering organization at Cisco. "SambaNova has some of the world's most demanding AI deployments running on its platform. We're in the position the rest of the industry is trying to get to. My job is to make sure our software keeps us there," said Rich Heaton. About SambaNova SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, providing a full-stack platform that powers efficient AI inference for enterprises, NeoClouds, AI labs and service providers, and sovereign AI initiatives worldwide. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Jose, California, SambaNova delivers chips, systems, and cloud services that enable customers to deploy state-of-the-art models with superior performance, lower total cost of ownership, and rapid time to value. Visit sambanova.ai or follow SambaNova on X and LinkedIn. Contacts Virginia Jamieson, Head of Communications, SambaNova [email protected] +1 (650) 279-8619

Northland News Radio
May 1st, 2026
Intel's $35M SambaNova investment clears US antitrust review

US antitrust authorities have completed their review of Intel's investment in SambaNova, a chip startup chaired by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, according to a regulatory notice issued on Friday. Intel invested $35 million in SambaNova in February, increasing its stake to 8.2% from 6.8%. The company plans to invest an additional $15 million in the startup, Reuters previously reported. The clearance removes regulatory obstacles to Intel's continued backing of the AI chip company.

SambaNova
Apr 21st, 2026
SambaNova and TEPCO Systems partner to deliver energy-efficient AI infrastructure to Japan's power sector.

SambaNova and TEPCO Systems partner to deliver energy-efficient AI infrastructure to Japan's power sector. SAN JOSE, Calif. - April 21, 2026 - SambaNova, a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, announces that TEPCO Systems Corporation ("TEPCO Systems"), the digital transformation arm of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Incorporated ("TEPCO Group"), has signed a distributor agreement to bring SambaNova's energy-efficient, high-performance AI infrastructure to enterprises across Japan. Under the agreement, TEPCO Systems will also deploy SambaNova's AI infrastructure as the foundation for the TEPCO Group's next-generation AI system platform, powering mission-critical applications that demand performance, security, and efficiency at scale. TEPCO Systems is adopting SambaNova's AI infrastructure - which delivers outstanding power efficiency and inference performance - to build new AI data center capabilities, while also offering these services to customers beyond the TEPCO Group. This collaboration will help accelerate Japan's AI-driven digital transformation by enabling organizations to run advanced AI workloads with reduced energy consumption and a lower total cost of ownership. SambaNova's systems have already been selected for deployment in projects such as NEDO's (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) "Post-5G Information and Communication System Infrastructure Enhancement R&D Project (Advanced Computing Resources) / Development of Post-5G Information and Communication Systems / R&D on the Utilization of Diverse AI Semiconductors and High-Efficiency Computing Resources (JPNP2501)," further underscoring the platform's suitability for large-scale, compute-intensive environments. TEPCO Systems: building next-generation AI data centers "SambaNova's AI infrastructure enables accurate, high-speed inference using highly confidential internal data in a secure environment, while also offering excellent power efficiency," said Haruki Mino, President at TEPCO Systems Corporation. "For this reason, we are evaluating SambaNova as the platform for our next-generation AI data centers." "Working together with SambaNova, TEPCO Systems will provide energy-efficient, high-performance modular AI systems and services centered on SambaNova's technology," added Mino. "This will help advance the sophistication of the electric power business through AI and accelerate our digital transformation, while also supporting green transformation initiatives and expanding our external AI data center business for customers outside the TEPCO Group." Meeting Japan's demand for secure, efficient AI at scale "As agentic AI moves from proof-of-concept into full-scale deployment, customers are seeking dramatically higher inference performance without compromising power efficiency or security," said Toshinori Kujiraoka, Vice President, Asia Pacific, SambaNova. "Through this distributor agreement, TEPCO Systems can now deliver SambaNova's next-generation AI infrastructure to more enterprises across Japan and support the construction of highly reliable AI systems that meet the stringent requirements of mission-critical environments." "Together, we will build sustainable AI data centers for the TEPCO Group that combine high performance with low power consumption, accelerating DX initiatives while helping organizations reduce their energy footprint," Kujiraoka continued. A new blueprint for large-scale AI in energy "TEPCO Systems is at the forefront of AI transformation in the energy sector, and it is a great honor to deepen our collaboration through this agreement," said Rodrigo Liang, Co-founder and CEO, SambaNova. "By combining TEPCO Systems' expertise in operating large-scale, mission-critical infrastructure with SambaNova's AI platform, we've created the blueprint for how utilities and critical infrastructure operators can deploy AI responsibly and sustainably." About TEPCO Systems Corporation TEPCO Systems Corporation is a core member of the TEPCO Group responsible for driving digital transformation across the utility's operations, from power generation and grid management to customer services. Headquartered in Koto-ku, Tokyo, TEPCO Systems develops and operates large-scale IT and OT systems that support reliable, safe, and efficient energy delivery in Japan. About SambaNova SambaNova is a leader in next-generation AI infrastructure, providing a full-stack platform that delivers the fastest and most efficient AI inference for enterprises, NeoClouds, AI research labs, service providers, and sovereign AI initiatives worldwide. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Jose, California, SambaNova offers chips, systems, and cloud services that enable customers to deploy state-of-the-art models with superior performance, lower total cost of ownership, and faster time to value. For more information, visit sambanova.ai or contact [email protected]. Contacts Virginia Jamieson, Head of Communications, SambaNova [email protected]

The Associated Press
Apr 8th, 2026
SambaNova and Intel unveil hybrid AI inference blueprint combining GPUs, RDUs, and Xeon 6 CPUs for agentic workloads

SambaNova and Intel have announced a heterogeneous AI inference system combining GPUs for prefill, SambaNova RDUs for decode, and Intel Xeon 6 processors for agentic tools. The solution targets enterprise agentic AI applications and will be available in the second half of 2026. The architecture addresses production agentic AI workloads by using GPUs for parallel processing, SambaNova's SN50 RDU for high-throughput token generation, and Xeon 6 processors for task coordination and code execution. According to SambaNova, Xeon 6 delivers over 50% faster compilation times compared to Arm-based server CPUs. The system is designed for standard air-cooled data centres, enabling enterprises and sovereign AI programmes to run production-scale AI whilst maintaining data residency and security requirements without building new facilities.

NiftyGPT
Apr 2nd, 2026
Intel invests additional $15M in AI startup SambaNova, raising stake to 9%

Intel plans to invest an additional $15 million in SambaNova, an AI hardware startup chaired by CEO Lip-Bu Tan, increasing its stake to 9%, according to documents. The investment follows a $35 million commitment in February, bringing Intel's total backing to $50 million. SambaNova develops neural-network accelerator platforms competing with Nvidia and Graphcore. Intel's increased stake aims to integrate its CPU and FPGA technologies with SambaNova's AI inference engines, strengthening its position in the high-performance computing market. The deepening partnership reflects Intel's strategy to diversify its AI portfolio beyond traditional silicon and offer end-to-end AI solutions from data centres to edge deployment. The move could influence supply-chain dynamics and pricing strategies as competition in AI hardware intensifies.