Senior Software Engineer, Metropolis Vision AI — San Francisco

NVIDIA's technology is at the heart of the AI revolution, touching people across the planet by powering everything from self-driving cars, robotics, co-pilots, and more. Join us at the forefront of technological advancement in intelligent assistants and information retrieval. Metropolis is transforming how the physical world is perceived and understood using advanced computer vision and deep learning. Our team builds large-scale distributed Vision AI platforms that power intelligent spaces, smart cities, retail analytics, and digital twins. This role offers the opportunity to own core components of a strategic platform with high visibility and real-world impact. As a System Software Engineer for Vision AI, you will develop and optimize high-performance vision systems that turn massive streams of video, image, and 3D data into actionable insights. You will collaborate with specialists in perception, simulation, and large models to bring research into production at scale. What you’ll be doing: • Crafting and implementing high-performance Vision AI pipelines for real-time and streaming scenarios using brand-new computer vision and deep learning models. • Developing and refining large-scale distributed services responsible for processing video, image, and 3D data in both edge and cloud settings. • Developing multi-modal perception capabilities that combine 2D, 3D, and temporal information to understand complex real-world scenes. • Using simulation and synthetic data tools to build, test, and validate perception algorithms at scale. • Profiling and tuning GPU-accelerated inference pipelines to meet strict latency, efficiency, and reliability targets. • Collaborating with partner teams across product, research, and platform to translate requirements into clear technical builds and robust implementations. • Driving technical build reviews, promoting guidelines for code quality and testing, and mentoring other engineers on Vision AI systems development. What we need to see: • BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience. • 12+ years of professional software development experience using modern C++ (14/17/20) and Python on Linux. • Strong computer science fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, concurrency, and distributed systems concepts. • Demonstrated expertise in computer vision and deep learning, with a history of deploying production systems in these fields with a focus on Vision-Language Model (VLM). • Experience building and debugging high-performance, concurrent systems, including multi-threading, asynchronous I/O, and efficient memory management. • Proficiency working in Linux-based environments with containers and microservices, integrating AI components into scalable back-end services. • Ability to rapidly prototype vision models and pipelines, then evolve them into production-quality services. • Practical experience with PyTorch in training, fine-tuning, and deploying models for vision tasks. • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a data-driven approach to performance optimization and system build. • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated success collaborating across time zones and functions. Ways to stand out from the crowd: • Proven experience delivering end-to-end computer vision applications in production, such as video analytics, smart cities, autonomous systems, retail analytics, industrial inspection, or digital twins. • Practical experience with GPU acceleration (such as CUDA, TensorRT, or comparable technologies) and low-level optimization for inference and pre/post-processing. • Experience in simulation and synthetic data creation employing tools such as Omniverse, Unreal Engine, Unity, or similar digital-twin platforms. • Background in vision-language models or related multi-modal AI, including integrating these models into real products. • Background in multimedia, including video-centric processing and delivery (such as codecs, video pipelines, or media frameworks) and integrating vision models into multimedia workflows. With competitive salaries and a generous benefits package, NVIDIA is widely considered to be one of the technology industry's most desirable employers. We have some of the most forward-thinking and versatile people in the world working with us, and our engineering teams are growing fast in some of the most impactful fields of our generation: Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Autonomous Vehicles. If you're a creative engineer who enjoys autonomy and shares our passion for technology, we want to hear from you. Your base salary will be determined based on your location, experience, and other objective job-related factors. The expected base salary range for this position is 224,000 USD – 356,500 USD. You will also be eligible for equity and benefits . Applications for this job will be accepted at least until November 3, 2026. This posting is for an existing vacancy.  NVIDIA uses AI tools in its recruiting processes. NVIDIA is committed to fostering an inclusive work environment and proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As we highly value diversity in our current and future employees, we do not discriminate (including in our hiring and promotion practices) on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law.