Senior Software Engineer (Cloud Image/Machine Learning Compute Architecture)

• Muon Space is expanding its High Performance Compute (HPC) team to accelerate mission-critical data products and unlock a growing pipeline of scientific imaging and ML workloads across ground and flight systems
• This role works directly with the team that produces our image data products
• As the architect for our cloud image processing and ML infrastructure, you’ll design, build, and deploy the serving platform that runs Muon’s image algorithms and ML models in production
• Architecture and performance optimization are the core of the job: you’ll set the patterns the rest of the team uses to take research models to a low-latency production service, and you’ll own the interfaces by which our data pipelines invoke that serving layer
• Architect, develop, align and deploy the cloud image processing and ML serving stack for Muon’s ground data products, including runtime integration, request batching, and serving multiple customer data feeds
• Design distributed, low-latency image processing systems that scale in the cloud
• Define the patterns and interfaces by which data pipelines call into performant native/accelerated code
• Set up a production-grade image processing and ML serving path for the Image Data Product pipeline, and extend the architecture to support upcoming imaging and onboard‑compute missions and future onboard accelerator opportunities
• Deliver high-performance reference algorithm implementations and benchmark them
• Mentor other engineers on modern C++, image and ML runtimes, and distributed-systems design
• Own verification and validation, including unit, integration, and performance regression tests
• Produce clear designs, trade studies, and interface documentation

Benefits

• 100% health, dental, and vision coverage for employees; 50% coverage for dependents (Concierge Medical offered through One Medical where available)
• Parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers
• Generous time off policy
• 401(k) plan through Betterment and equity management through Carta
• Fully stocked kitchen at our HQ and we cater lunch 3 days per week
• Dog-friendly office

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience architecting distributed systems for low-latency image and ML, data analysis, or computer vision
• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, including technical leadership on distributed computation or data-intensive systems
• Strong PyTorch experience and production experience running models in C++ runtimes in the cloud using LibTorch or equivalent
• Expert-level C++, with deep familiarity with memory management, concurrency, and performance-oriented programming in production systems
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Applied Math, or a related technical field
• Strong Python skills, including interaction with native optimized implementations
• Ability and willingness to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance. Active clearance is a plus
• Strong written and verbal communication and ability to lead and conclude cross-functional technical discussions
• Model optimization for inference (quantization, graph compilation, kernel fusion)
• Experience with accelerators beyond GPUs (e.g., TPUs) and reasoning about accelerator tradeoffs
• Production ownership for latency-critical production systems
• CI/CD for containerized workloads, including performance regression testing
• GPU acceleration (CUDA, HIP, or similar)
• Direct exposure to space, aerospace, or other mission-critical software environments