Principal Performance Engineer Lead

Do you want to push the boundaries of AI inference speed and accuracy at global scale?

Are you passionate about optimizing how models perform in production serving environments?

Join the Akamai Inference Cloud Team!

The Akamai Inference Cloud team is part of Akamai's Cloud Technology Group. We design and operate AI platforms that enable customers to run models with unmatched performance, compliance, and economics. The Model Intelligence & Lifecycle team owns the end-to-end model lifecyclefrom validation and security scanning through quantization, optimization, and monitoring. We ensure every model meets rigorous standards for quality, safety, and performance.

Partner with the best

As an ML Performance Engineer, you will optimize inference performance across the Akamai Inference Cloud. Your focus will be at the intersection of speed and accuracyapplying techniques like quantization, speculative decoding, and hardware-aware scheduling to maximize throughput and minimize latency.
You will collaborate closely with hardware performance engineers to deliver end-to-end optimization.

As an ML Performance Engineer Principal Lead, you will be responsible for:

• Applying and evaluating quantization, distillation, and pruning techniques to optimize model performance while preserving accuracy
• Designing hardware-aware model placement and scheduling strategies to match models with optimal compute resources
• Implementing and tune speculative decoding, KV-cache optimization, and batching strategies to improve inference throughput and latency
• Building benchmarking and profiling pipelines to measure model-layer performance across architectures, hardware, and serving configurations
• Mentoring and guiding engineers on the team through code reviews, design discussions, and technical problem-solving
• Collaborating with hardware performance engineers to identify and resolve end-to-end performance bottlenecks across the inference stack

Do what you love

To be successful in this role you will:

• 12+ years of relevant experience with a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field
• Possess hands-on experience optimizing LLM inference performance (quantization, speculative decoding, model compression, etc.)
• Have a solid understanding of transformer architectures and how design choices impact latency, throughput, and accuracy
• Possess experience with inference serving frameworks such as vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, Triton, or similar systems
• Be proficient in Python and C++ with experience profiling and optimizing compute-intensive workloads
• Have familiarity with hardware-aware optimization, including GPU/accelerator scheduling and memory management trade-offs

Work in a way that works for you

FlexBase, Akamai's Global Flexible Working Program, is based on the principles that are helping us create the best workplace in the world. When our colleagues said that flexible working was important to them, we listened. We also know flexible working is important to many of the incredible people considering joining Akamai. FlexBase, gives 95% of employees the choice to work from their home, their office, or both (in the country advertised). This permanent workplace flexibility program is consistent and fair globally, to help us find incredible talent, virtually anywhere. We are happy to discuss working options for this role and encourage you to speak with your recruiter in more detail when you apply. 
Learn what makes Akamai a great place to work

#AIC

We power and protect life online, by solving the toughest challenges, together.

At Akamai, we're curious, innovative, collaborative and tenacious. We celebrate diversity of thought and we hold an unwavering belief that we can make a meaningful difference. Our teams use their global perspectives to put customers at the forefront of everything they do, so if you are people-centric, you'll thrive here.

Working for you

At Akamai, we will provide you with opportunities to grow, flourish, and achieve great things. Our benefit options are designed to meet your individual needs for today and in the future. We provide benefits surrounding all aspects of your life:

• Your health
• Your finances
• Your family
• Your time at work
• Your time pursuing other endeavors

Our benefit plan options are designed to meet your individual needs and budget, both today and in the future.

About us

Akamai powers and protects life online. Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences helping billions of people live, work, and play every day. With the world's most distributed compute platform from cloud to edge we make it easy for customers to develop and run applications, while we keep experiences closer to users and threats farther away.

Join us

Are you seeking an opportunity to make a real difference in a company with a global reach and exciting services and clients? Come join us and grow with a team of people who will energize and inspire you!
Akamai Technologies is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer that values the strength that diversity brings to the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, protected veteran status, disability, or other protected group status.
If no date is displayed, applications are being accepted on an ongoing basis until the job is filled.

Compensation

Akamai is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For US based candidates only - the base salary for this position ranges from $169,300 - $304,700/year; a candidate’s salary is determined by various factors including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and location. Compensation for candidates outside the US will vary. The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of annual bonus or incentives, equity awards and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). Akamai provides industry-leading benefits including healthcare, 401K savings plan, company holidays, vacation (in the form of PTO), sick time, family friendly benefits including parental leave and an employee assistance program including a focus on mental and financial wellness; Eligibility requirements apply.