JOB DESCRIPTION
About NIO
NIO is a pioneer and a leading company in the premium smart electric vehicle market. Founded in November 2014, NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle. NIO aims to build a community starting with smart electric vehicles to share joy and grow together with users.
NIO designs, develops, jointly manufactures and sells premium smart electric vehicles, driving innovations in next-generation technologies in autonomous driving, digital technologies, electric powertrains and batteries. NIO differentiates itself through its continuous technological breakthroughs and innovations, such as its industry-leading battery swapping technologies, Battery as a Service, or BaaS, as well as its proprietary autonomous driving technologies and Autonomous Driving as a Service, or ADaaS.
NIO’s product portfolio consists of the ES8, a six-seater smart electric flagship SUV, the ES7 (or the EL7), a mid-large five-seater smart electric SUV, the ES6, a five-seater all-round smart electric SUV, the EC7, a five-seater smart electric flagship coupe SUV, the EC6, a five-seater smart electric coupe SUV, the ET7, a smart electric flagship sedan, and the ET5, a mid-size smart electric sedan.
About the Position
We are looking for a senior AI Inference Infrastructure Software Engineer with strong hands-on experience building, optimizing, and deploying high-performance, scalable inference systems. This position is focused on designing, implementing, and delivering production-grade software that powers real-world applications of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision-Language Models (VLMs).
This is an exciting opportunity for an engineer who thrives at the intersection of AI systems, hardware acceleration, and large-scale robust deployment, and who wants to see their contributions ship in production, at scale.
In this role, you will directly shape the architecture, roadmap and performance of AI capabilities of our AIOS platform, driving innovations that make LLM/VLM systems fast, efficient, and scalable across cloud, edge, and hybrid edge-cloud environments. You will work closely with system, hardware, and product teams to deliver high-performance inference kernels for hardware accelerators, design scalable inference serving systems, and integrate optimizations such tensor parallelism and custom kernels into production pipelines. Your work will have immediate impact, powering intelligent automotive systems in the next generation of electric vehicles.
Roles and Responsibilities:
Design and implement high-performance, scalable inference systems for LLMs and VLMs across cloud, edge, and edge-cloud hybrid platforms.
Develop and optimize custom kernels and operators for specific hardware accelerators (GPU, NPU, DSP, etc.), improving throughput, latency, and memory efficiency.
Integrate advanced optimization techniques such as KV-cache management, tensor/model parallelism, quantization, and memory-efficient execution into production inference systems.
Partner with system and hardware teams to ensure tight hardware-software integration and optimal performance across diverse compute environments.
Translate architectural requirements into robust, maintainable, production-ready software that meets performance, safety, and reliability standards.
Define and drive the evolution roadmap for LLM/VLM inference in the AIOS stack, ensuring scalability and adaptability to new workloads.
Stay ahead of industry trends and competitor solutions, applying best practices from both AI and large-scale systems engineering.
Qualifications:
5+ years of hands-on software development experience in building and optimizing AI inference systems at scale.
Direct experience in LLM/VLM model internals, including Transformer-based architectures, inference bottlenecks, and optimization techniques.
Strong expertise in performance engineering: kernel development, parallelism strategies, memory optimization, and distributed inference systems.
Proficiency with GPU/NPU programming (CUDA, or vendor-specific SDKs), compiler toolchains, and deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, or TensorFlow).
Strong programming skills in C/C++, with a track record of delivering high-performance, production-grade software.
Solid foundation in computer architecture, systems programming (CPU/GPU pipelines, memory hierarchy, scheduling), and embedded systems.
BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across cross-functional teams.
Preferred Qualifications:
Master’s or PhD degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or related fields, plus 5 years industry experience
Experience building inference serving systems for large models, including batching, scheduling, caching, and load balancing.
Expertise in hardware-aware model optimization (e.g., kernel fusion, mixed precision, quantization, pruning).
Familiarity with edge and embedded AI, including real-time constraints and limited-resource optimization.
Contributions to widely used AI frameworks, libraries, or performance-critical software (open source or proprietary).
Compensation:
The US base salary range for this full-time position is $163,500.00 - $212,400.00.Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.
Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only. It does not include discretionary bonus, equity, or benefits.
Benefits:
Along with competitive pay, as a full-time NIO employee, you are eligible for the following benefits on the first day you join NIO:
Anthem Blue Cross, HSA, and Kaiser HMO medical plans with $0 for Employee Only Coverage.
Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plan. Both provide options with a $0 paycheck contribution covering you and your eligible dependents.
Company Paid HSA (Health Savings Account) Contribution when enrolled in the High Deductible Anthem Blue Cross medical plan
Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
401(k) with Brokerage Link option
Company paid Basic Life, AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance
Employee Assistance Program
Sick and Vacation time
13 Paid Holidays a year
Paid Parental Leave for first 8 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)
Paid Disability Leave for first 6 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)
Voluntary benefits including: Voluntary Life and AD&D options for you, your spouse/domestic partner and dependent child(ren), pet insurance
Commuter benefits
Mobile Cell Phone Credit
Free lunch and snacks
Onsite gym
Employee discounts and perks program
Skills Required
- 5+ years of software development experience in AI inference systems
- Experience in LLM/VLM model internals and optimization techniques
- Proficiency in CUDA and deep learning frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow
- Strong programming skills in C/C++
- BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field
NIO Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about NIO and has not been reviewed or approved by NIO.
-
Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay and benefits are rated highly in at least one cited source, and the provided figures position total compensation as competitive within tech/EV roles. The package appears stronger for senior and specialized roles given the upper-end salary ranges shown.
-
Equity Value & Accessibility — A stock ownership plan is described as covering all employees, indicating broad access to equity participation. This design links employee rewards to company performance through shared ownership.
-
Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Workplace perks include flexible hours, catered lunch, unlimited PTO in older accounts, and lifestyle supports such as free snacks/drinks and fitness stipends. These benefits add day-to-day value beyond base pay.
NIO Insights
What We Do
NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle by offering premium smart electric vehicles and providing the best user experience. NIO was founded in November 2014 as a global electric vehicle company. The company has over 7,000 employees working across world-class research and development, design and manufacturing centers in Shanghai, Beijing, San Jose, Munich, London and six other locations. In 2015, NIO was the title sponsor for the Drivers’ Championship winning team during the inaugural ABB FIA Formula E season. In 2016, NIO unveiled one of the fastest electric cars in the world, the EP9. The EP9 set the lap record for an electric vehicle at the Nürburgring Nordschleife and three other world-renowned tracks. In 2017, NIO unveiled its vision car EVE and announced that the NIO EP9 set a new world speed record for an autonomous vehicle at the Circuit of the Americas. NIO officially began deliveries of the ES8, the high-performance electric flagship SUV, on June 28, 2018. NIO was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on September 12, 2018. NIO officially launched the high-performance long-range electric SUV, NIO ES6, at NIO Day on December 15, 2018. On May 28, 2019, the first production model ES6 rolled off the line at the JAC NIO Advanced Manufacturing Center. NIO officially began deliveries of the ES6 on June 18, 2019. NIO officially launched the EC6, a 5-seater smart premium electric coupe SUV, in December 2019 and began deliveries of the EC6 on September 2020. On January 9, 2021, NIO ET7, the smart electric flagship sedan and NIO’s first autonomous driving model, was officially launched.
