AI Technical Lead

## AI Technical LeadApplyremote type: Onsitelocations: San Jose-UStime type: Full timeposted on: Posted Yesterdayjob requisition id: R- ****JOB DESCRIPTION******About NIO**NIO is a pioneer and a leading company in the premium smart electric vehicle market. Founded in November 2014, NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle. NIO aims to build a community starting with smart electric vehicles to share joy and grow together with users.NIO designs, develops, jointly manufactures and sells premium smart electric vehicles, driving innovations in next-generation technologies in autonomous driving, digital technologies, electric powertrains and batteries. NIO differentiates itself through its continuous technological breakthroughs and innovations, such as its industry-leading battery swapping technologies, Battery as a Service, or BaaS, as well as its proprietary autonomous driving technologies and Autonomous Driving as a Service, or ADaaS.NIO’s product portfolio consists of the ES8, a six-seater smart electric flagship SUV, the ES7 (or the EL7), a mid-large five-seater smart electric SUV, the ES6, a five-seater all-round smart electric SUV, the EC7, a five-seater smart electric flagship coupe SUV, the EC6, a five-seater smart electric coupe SUV, the ET7, a smart electric flagship sedan, and the ET5, a mid-size smart electric sedan.### Roles and Responsibilities* **Architect the Hybrid** **AI** **Vision:** Lead the architectural design and strategic vision for hybrid inference systems, dynamically distributing Large Language Model (LLM) and Vision-Language Model (VLM) workloads across edge computing environments and cloud infrastructure.* **Team Leadership & Innovation:** Lead, mentor, and inspire a team of specialized engineers working across distributed systems orchestration, inference optimization, and AI compiler engineering. While you are not expected to be a hands-on master of every domain, you will drive the overarching technical roadmap, foster a culture of cutting-edge innovation, and guide domain experts in navigating complex system tradeoffs.* **Design** **Dynamic** **Orchestration & Resilience:** Oversee the architecture of high-availability orchestration engines that intelligently route inference tasks. Guide the team in developing cascading inference mechanisms, dynamic model fallback strategies, and robust telemetry to ensure continuous, steady-state inference under varying connectivity constraints.### ### Qualifications* **Education & Experience:** Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field with **8+ years** of relevant industry experience (or Master’s degree with **12+ years**), including proven experience leading technical teams or driving complex architectural roadmaps.* **End-to-End Systems Leadership (T-Shaped Profile):** Demonstrated capability to lead full-stack AI systems engineering. You possess deep, hands-on mastery in at least one or two of the following core domains, coupled with the comprehensive systemic breadth required to effectively lead engineers working across the others: + **Distributed Systems & Hybrid Inference:** Designing, scaling, and deploying production-grade distributed ML systems. Balancing cloud infrastructure with edge constraints using modern routing paradigms, such as cascading inference architectures and semantic routing. + **Algorithmic & Inference Optimization:** Proven experience optimizing state-of-the-art LLM/VLM inference pipelines. Deep understanding of model compression (e.g., PTQ, QAT, AWQ, FP8/INT4), hardware-aware compute optimizations (e.g., FlashAttention), and advanced memory management (e.g., PagedAttention, KV cache compression/eviction). + **Advanced Systems & Compiler** **Engineering****:** C++ and production-grade Python proficiency. Deep understanding of edge/cloud model-serving frameworks (e.g., vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, ExecuTorch, MLC-LLM) and AI compilers (e.g., MLIR, Apache TVM, Triton) for compute graph optimization and custom kernel development.### ### Preferred Qualifications* **Privacy &** **Security****:** Deep understanding of privacy-preserving AI techniques (federated learning, differential privacy, secure enclaves) essential for processing sensitive data across edge and cloud environments.* **Community Engagement &** **Open** **Source:** Publications in relevant AI, ML, or systems conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, MLSys), or active contributions to open-source ML infrastructure projects (e.g., vLLM, ONNX Runtime, Apache TVM, llama.cpp).**Compensation:**The US base salary range for this full-time position is $192,100.00 - $249,600.00.* Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.* Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only. It does not include discretionary bonus, equity, or benefits.**Benefits:**Along with competitive pay, as a full-time NIO employee, you are eligible for the following benefits on the first day you join NIO:* Anthem Blue Cross, HSA, and Kaiser HMO medical plans with $0 for Employee Only Coverage.* Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plan. Both provide options with a $0 paycheck contribution covering you and your eligible dependents.* Company Paid HSA (Health Savings Account) Contribution when enrolled in the High Deductible Anthem Blue Cross medical plan* Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)* 401(k) with Brokerage Link option* Company paid Basic Life, AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance* Employee Assistance Program* Sick and Vacation time* 13 Paid Holidays a year* Paid Parental Leave for first 8 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)* Paid Disability Leave for first 6 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)* Voluntary benefits including: Voluntary Life and AD&D options for you, your spouse/domestic partner and dependent child(ren), pet insurance* Commuter benefits* Mobile Cell Phone Credit* Free lunch and snacks* Onsite gym* Employee discounts and perks program
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