Low-Level Software Engineer, LLK

Job Title

Low-Level Software Engineer, LLK

Role Summary

Work on Tenstorrent's Low-Level Kernel (LLK) team to develop low-level software that sits directly on the ISA of Tenstorrent AI hardware. The role focuses on building kernels and primitives, hardware-aware optimization, and performance engineering that enable efficient AI workloads.

This position is hybrid, based out of Toronto, Canada, and requires collaboration across LLK subteams, hardware, runtime, and operations.

Experience Level

Mid-level. The posting does not specify years of experience; the role requires demonstrated experience building low-level, performance-critical software.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include designing and optimizing low-level software to expose hardware capabilities and improve performance across the stack.

• Design and implement low-level kernels and software primitives for Tenstorrent AI hardware.
• Lead performance optimization efforts: profile, identify bottlenecks, implement fixes, and validate results.
• Develop software to enable model bring-up and efficient execution on Tenstorrent hardware.
• Collaborate with LLK subteams (performance, tools, compute, architecture bring-up) and with hardware and runtime teams.
• Drive improvements to the quality, performance, and capabilities of the low-level software stack.
• Own problems from design through implementation and optimization.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience for the role; nice-to-have items listed separately.

• Must-have: Strong proficiency in C/C++ and experience building low-level, performance-critical software.
• Must-have: Deep understanding of computer architecture and how software maps to hardware.
• Must-have: Experience with performance profiling, analysis, and systems-level optimization.
• Must-have: Comfortable working close to hardware and making tradeoffs between performance, correctness, and maintainability.
• Must-have: Proven ability to collaborate across software and hardware teams and influence technical decisions.
• Nice-to-have: Experience with AI/hardware instruction sets, low-level kernel development, hardware-aware debugging, or similar work on custom AI accelerators.

Education Requirements

Not specified.

About the Company

Company: Tenstorrent

Headquarters: Austin, Texas, United States

Tenstorrent is a technology company focused on designing innovative computing solutions. They are known for their expertise in the development of advanced hardware, including ASICs and SoCs, aimed at enhancing performance and efficiency in various applications.