Senior Staff Software Engineer, Developer and Qualification Tools

About the role

This position centers on engineering the diagnostic and developer toolchain for D Matrix's specialized AI inference accelerators. You will take ownership of critical infrastructure including debuggers, performance profilers, and hardware qualification frameworks that operate within a unique compute architecture. The role demands a blend of low-level systems expertise and tooling intuition to empower both internal engineering teams and external developers. Success requires navigating the intersection of custom silicon bring-up and high-quality software delivery. You will be instrumental in defining how developers interact with and optimize workloads on novel hardware platforms.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Architect and implement comprehensive debugging and profiling utilities tailored for AI accelerator hardware, enabling deep visibility into compute pipeline execution and memory subsystem behavior.
• Design and maintain hardware qualification software suites that validate silicon functionality, reliability, and performance thresholds across pre-silicon simulation and post-silicon bring-up phases.
• Sustain and enhance existing diagnostic toolchains, refactoring legacy components and integrating new instrumentation capabilities as the hardware architecture evolves.
• Collaborate closely with hardware architects, RTL designers, and compiler engineers to define tool requirements that align with the proprietary hardware and software ecosystem roadmap.
• Develop automated test infrastructure for continuous integration pipelines, ensuring regression coverage for debugger features, profiler accuracy, and qualification test vectors.
• Build introspection tools that correlate high-level AI model performance metrics with low-level hardware counter data to accelerate root-cause analysis for performance bottlenecks.
• Create and maintain documentation, API specifications, and usage guides for internal and external developer tooling consumers.
• Participate in the bring-up of new silicon revisions, executing qualification plans and rapidly developing ad-hoc diagnostics to isolate silicon errata or integration issues.
• Optimize toolchain performance for large-scale model debugging scenarios, addressing latency and memory overhead in profiler data collection and visualization.
• Define interfaces and data formats for interoperability between D Matrix tools and standard ecosystem components such as IDE integrations or CI/CD systems.
• Mentor junior engineers on systems programming best practices, debugging methodologies, and the specifics of the accelerator architecture.
• Drive technical decision-making for the developer tools roadmap, balancing immediate bring-up needs with long-term platform maintainability and usability.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a closely related technical discipline.
• Minimum of seven years of professional software development experience in systems-level or infrastructure roles.
• Deep proficiency in at least one primary systems language: C, C++, or Python, with the ability to write performant, maintainable code in a production environment.
• Demonstrated experience with the full software development lifecycle, including design reviews, code reviews, testing strategies, and release management for complex systems.
• Strong understanding of operating system internals, memory management, concurrency, and hardware/software interface concepts.
• Proven ability to debug complex, multi-threaded, or distributed systems issues using advanced tooling and analytical techniques.
• Experience working in a Linux development environment, including kernel-module interaction or userspace driver development contexts.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills for cross-functional collaboration and technical documentation.

Nice to have

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related field.
• Prior experience in early-stage startup environments or small, high-velocity engineering teams where scope is broad and process is lightweight.
• Direct contribution to developer tool internals, such as extensions or maintenance for GDB, LLDB, or similar debugger frontends and backends.
• Practical knowledge of hardware validation methodologies, including JTAG/bring-up labs, ATE test patterns, or silicon characterization flows.
• Fluency across both C/C++ and Python ecosystems, enabling seamless context switching between performance-critical cores and scripting/automation layers.
• Familiarity with time-series monitoring stacks, specifically Grafana for visualization and InfluxDB for metric storage and querying.
• Competence in web-based user interface development for building dashboards, configuration panels, or interactive analysis tools.

Skills & tools

• C
• C++
• Python
• GDB
• LLDB
• Grafana
• InfluxDB
• Web UI development
• Linux systems programming
• CI/CD pipelines
• Hardware bring-up
• Silicon validation

Practical notes

D Matrix operates as an equal opportunity employer committed to inclusive hiring practices. The company does not accept unsolicited resumes or candidate submissions from external recruitment agencies; all applications must be submitted directly through official career channels. The role is based in Santa Clara, California, but offers flexibility for fully remote work for candidates located anywhere within the United States or Canada. Visa sponsorship details are not explicitly stated in the listing; candidates requiring work authorization should confirm eligibility during the application process. The compensation package includes a base salary range of $175,000 to $265,000, supplemented by equity grants and performance-based bonuses.