Roles / AI Accelerator Driver Engineer

AI Accelerator Driver Engineer

AIS-023v1

AI/ML Silicon Software Stack & Co-DesignSoftwareIC3–IC6Individual contributor

Also known as: GPU Driver Engineer; KMD/UMD Developer; Accelerator Kernel-Mode Driver Engineer

See this role on the AI accelerator lifecycle or on the SoC lifecycle

Summary

Owns the kernel-mode and user-mode driver layer that exposes the accelerator to the operating system — device enumeration, memory mapping, command submission, interrupts, power states and virtualization.

A day in the life

Work in progressNo day-in-the-life description has been written for this role yet. If you do this work, we would welcome yours. Suggest a source or a correction

Responsibilities

Project

Work done for a product or program.

Develop and maintain the Linux kernel-mode driver including PCIe enumeration, BAR mapping, MSI-X interrupt handling and DMA engine control.
Implement command submission and completion paths with doorbell rings, ring buffers and fence-based synchronization.
Implement device memory management including page tables, unified virtual addressing and DMA-BUF sharing with NICs and other devices.
Build power management support covering idle states, DVFS transitions, thermal throttling responses and suspend/resume.
Debug kernel panics, IOMMU faults, device hangs and PCIe link errors using crash dumps, bus analyzers and JTAG.
Lead silicon bring-up activities from first power-on, validating register access, interrupts and basic data movement.
Upstream driver code to the mainline Linux kernel and respond to maintainer review feedback.
Implement RAS features including ECC error reporting, page retirement and device reset recovery paths.
Maintain firmware loading, secure boot verification and driver-firmware protocol compatibility.

Function

Work that keeps the discipline running: methods, tools, suppliers and people.

Implement virtualization and partitioning support through SR-IOV, SIOV or vendor multi-instance mechanisms.

Major tasks

Project

Produce and hand over the role's key deliverables
- Kernel-mode and user-mode driver releases per operating system and kernel version
- Silicon bring-up test plan and first-power-on results
- Device memory management and command submission subsystem
- Virtualization and partitioning support implementation
- RAS error reporting and device reset recovery specification
Develop the softwareGeneral
- Design to the hardware specification
- Write and review the code
- Test on models, emulation or silicon
Release and supportGeneral
- Package and document releases
- Fix customer-reported defects

Function

Maintain the platformGeneral
- Keep build, test and release tools working
- Track toolchain and operating system changes
Raise qualityGeneral
- Run code reviews
- Extend automated tests

Works with

Runtime engineers
firmware engineers
silicon validation and bring-up teams
hardware design engineers
fleet software engineers
OS vendors

Typical backgrounds

BS/MS in Computer Engineering or Computer Science; 4–12 years in operating-system, driver or embedded systems development, often from GPU, storage or networking driver teams.

Demand signal

0 open listings right now
0 Talent Wafer employer inquiries

Counts live listings tagged to this role, and employer interest in candidates from Talent Wafer runs for this role (all runs to date). Hub activity only, not the wider market.

Comp tier (within semis)

4 / 5

Remote feasibility

Low

Semis core vs. portable

Core semiconductor-only

Geographic hotspots

Santa Clara, Austin, Hillsboro, Bangalore, Shanghai, Hsinchu, Haifa, Munich, Toronto

Certifications / standards training

—

Transfers to (industries)

Networking and storage hardware vendors, automotive compute platforms, operating system vendors, embedded systems companies

Risk if vacant

New silicon cannot be brought up or enumerated by the host at all, halting the entire software stack and pushing the programme schedule out by months.

Roles / AI Accelerator Driver Engineer

AI Accelerator Driver Engineer

AIS-023v1

AI/ML Silicon Software Stack & Co-DesignSoftwareIC3–IC6Individual contributor

Also known as: GPU Driver Engineer; KMD/UMD Developer; Accelerator Kernel-Mode Driver Engineer

See this role on the AI accelerator lifecycle or on the SoC lifecycle

Summary

A day in the life

Work in progressNo day-in-the-life description has been written for this role yet. If you do this work, we would welcome yours. Suggest a source or a correction

Responsibilities

Project

Work done for a product or program.

Develop and maintain the Linux kernel-mode driver including PCIe enumeration, BAR mapping, MSI-X interrupt handling and DMA engine control.
Implement command submission and completion paths with doorbell rings, ring buffers and fence-based synchronization.
Implement device memory management including page tables, unified virtual addressing and DMA-BUF sharing with NICs and other devices.
Build power management support covering idle states, DVFS transitions, thermal throttling responses and suspend/resume.
Debug kernel panics, IOMMU faults, device hangs and PCIe link errors using crash dumps, bus analyzers and JTAG.
Lead silicon bring-up activities from first power-on, validating register access, interrupts and basic data movement.
Upstream driver code to the mainline Linux kernel and respond to maintainer review feedback.
Implement RAS features including ECC error reporting, page retirement and device reset recovery paths.
Maintain firmware loading, secure boot verification and driver-firmware protocol compatibility.

Function

Work that keeps the discipline running: methods, tools, suppliers and people.

Implement virtualization and partitioning support through SR-IOV, SIOV or vendor multi-instance mechanisms.

Major tasks

Project

Produce and hand over the role's key deliverables
- Kernel-mode and user-mode driver releases per operating system and kernel version
- Silicon bring-up test plan and first-power-on results
- Device memory management and command submission subsystem
- Virtualization and partitioning support implementation
- RAS error reporting and device reset recovery specification
Develop the softwareGeneral
- Design to the hardware specification
- Write and review the code
- Test on models, emulation or silicon
Release and supportGeneral
- Package and document releases
- Fix customer-reported defects

Function

Maintain the platformGeneral
- Keep build, test and release tools working
- Track toolchain and operating system changes
Raise qualityGeneral
- Run code reviews
- Extend automated tests

Works with

Runtime engineers
firmware engineers
silicon validation and bring-up teams
hardware design engineers
fleet software engineers
OS vendors

Typical backgrounds

BS/MS in Computer Engineering or Computer Science; 4–12 years in operating-system, driver or embedded systems development, often from GPU, storage or networking driver teams.

Demand signal

0 open listings right now
0 Talent Wafer employer inquiries

Counts live listings tagged to this role, and employer interest in candidates from Talent Wafer runs for this role (all runs to date). Hub activity only, not the wider market.

Comp tier (within semis)

4 / 5

Remote feasibility

Low

Semis core vs. portable

Core semiconductor-only

Geographic hotspots

Santa Clara, Austin, Hillsboro, Bangalore, Shanghai, Hsinchu, Haifa, Munich, Toronto

Certifications / standards training

—

Transfers to (industries)

Networking and storage hardware vendors, automotive compute platforms, operating system vendors, embedded systems companies

Risk if vacant

New silicon cannot be brought up or enumerated by the host at all, halting the entire software stack and pushing the programme schedule out by months.

AI Accelerator Driver Engineer

Summary

A day in the life

Responsibilities

Project

Function

Major tasks

Project

Function

Works with

AI Accelerator Driver Engineer

Summary

A day in the life

Responsibilities

Project

Function

Major tasks

Project

Function

Works with

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