Director Performance Engineering Jobs in Redmond, WA

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI™. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence. Trusted by leading AI labs, startups, and global enterprises, CoreWeave combines superior infrastructure performance with deep technical expertise to accelerate breakthroughs and turn compute into capability. Founded in 2017, CoreWeave became a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CRWV) in March 2025. Learn more at www.coreweave.com.
What you'll do:
CoreWeave is seeking a highly skilled and motivated HPC Performance Engineer to join our HAVOCK Team, reporting into the Manager of Systems Engineering. In this role, you will play a crucial part in the design, development, and optimization of our bare-metal systems from POST through joining a Kubernetes cluster. The team's primary responsibilities include maintaining a custom Linux kernel, various OS images (Ubuntu-based), the virtualization stack (kubevirt/qemu/vfio), and the container/pod runtime stack (containerd/nydus/kubelet). You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, up stack engineering teams, and stakeholders to ensure our low-level software stack is performant in the context of hardware updates; and providing data, metrics, dashboards, and analysis to substantiate performance assertions.
Kernel Hardware - Acceleration - Virtualization - Operating Systems - Containerization - Kubelet
Our Team's Stack:

• Python, Go, bash/sh, C
• Prometheus, Victoria Metrics, Grafana
• Linux Kernel (custom build), Ubuntu
• Intel/AMD/ARM CPUs, Nvidia GPUs, DPUs, Infiniband and Ethernet NICs
• Docker, kubernetes (k8s), KubeVirt, containerd, kubelet

About the role:

• Develop and maintain tools for establishing systems performance baselines
• Develop and maintain performance regression analysis testing automation
• Design and maintain performance regression test pipelines for HPC workloads
• Debug and Tune fabric-level performance to ensure low-latency high throughput configurations
• Development of telemetry for performance analysis across distributed clusters of servers
• Triage and fix performance issues in Linux
• Collect data, produce metrics and visualizations that communicate performance information compared to benchmarks; this data should lead to appropriate business decisions and toward greater automation that improves customer experience in relation to performance
• Define Linux and OS requirements, specifications, and system architecture in relation to systems performance, in collaboration with cross-functional teams. Along with these responsibilities there will also be cross team collaboration to triage and resolve bottlenecks

Who you are:

• 5+ years of professional experience in Systems/HPC Performance Engineering, Benchmarking, and/or Validation.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Strong experience with MPI workloads and distributed system performance analysis
• Familiarity with RoCE, InfiniBand, and GPUDirect/Data Direct I/O, NUMA, etc in HPC workloads
• Hands-on use of public HPC benchmarks (HPCC, HPL, OSU, MLPerf-HPC, STREAM, IO500)
• Extensive, deep experience in Linux internals
• Fluency with a programming language geared toward automation (Python preferred, but others possible)
• Experience writing robust, testable code
• Experience diagnosing and fixing systems performance issues
• Experiencing with implementing automation testing
• Ability to effectively prioritize and communicate proposed features and fixes in a remote-employee environment
• Strong passion for automation, with a commitment to automating processes comprehensively
• Excellent documentation skills and attention to detail
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities

Preferred:

• Familiarity with QA/QE best practices
• Familiarity with Golang
• Opinions about software version control and team collaboration
• Experience working in Cloud environments
• Experience as a software engineer writing large-scale applications
• Experience in open-source community software development
• Experience with machine learning is a huge bonus

Wondering if you're a good fit? We believe in investing in our people, and value candidates who can bring their own diversified experiences to our teams - even if you aren't a 100% skill or experience match.
Why CoreWeave?
At CoreWeave, we work hard, have fun, and move fast! We're in an exciting stage of hyper-growth that you will not want to miss out on. We're not afraid of a little chaos, and we're constantly learning. Our team cares deeply about how we build our product and how we work together, which is represented through our core values:

• Be Curious at Your Core
• Act Like an Owner
• Empower Employees
• Deliver Best-in-Class Client Experiences
• Achieve More Together

We support and encourage an entrepreneurial outlook and independent thinking. We foster an environment that encourages collaboration and provides the opportunity to develop innovative solutions to complex problems. As we get set for take off, the growth opportunities within the organization are constantly expanding. You will be surrounded by some of the best talent in the industry, who will want to learn from you, too. Come join us!
The base salary range for this role is $165,000 to $242,000. The starting salary will be determined based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location. We strive for both market alignment and internal equity when determining compensation. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes a discretionary bonus, equity awards, and a comprehensive benefits program (all based on eligibility).
What We Offer
The range we've posted represents the typical compensation range for this role. To determine actual compensation, we review the market rate for each candidate which can include a variety of factors. These include qualifications, experience, interview performance, and location.
In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a variety of benefits to support your needs. The benefits below reflect our US-based offerings for full-time employees; for roles in other locations, benefits vary and are shared during the hiring process. These include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance - 100% paid for by CoreWeave
• Company-paid Life Insurance
• Voluntary supplemental life insurance
• Short and long-term disability insurance
• Flexible Spending Account
• Health Savings Account
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Ability to Participate in Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
• Mental Wellness Benefits through Spring Health
• Family-Forming support provided by Carrot
• Paid Parental Leave
• Flexible, full-service childcare support with Kinside
• 401(k) with a generous employer match
• Flexible PTO
• Catered lunch each day in our office and data center locations
• A casual work environment
• A work culture focused on innovative disruption

California Applicants
California Consumer Privacy Act
Equal Opportunity & Accommodations
CoreWeave is an equal opportunity employer, committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace. All qualified applicants and candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or genetic information.
As part of this commitment and consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), CoreWeave will ensure that qualified applicants and candidates with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process, unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact: careers@coreweave.com.
Export Control Compliance
This position requires access to export controlled information. To conform to U.S. Government export regulations applicable to that information, applicant must either be (A) a U.S. person, defined as a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), (iii) refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, (B) eligible to access the export controlled information without a required export authorization, or (C) eligible and reasonably likely to obtain the required export authorization from the applicable U.S. government agency. CoreWeave may, for legitimate business reasons, decline to pursue any export licensing process.