AI Systems Engineer

The Mission

For decades, progress in complex computer systems relied solely on human ingenuity. At Glia AI, we are changing that paradigm. We are building Glia, an AI-based systems engineer that augments human experts to design and optimize the next generation of infrastructure. Glia isn’t just an assistant; it is a multi-agent system that mimics the R&D process of top-tier engineers—reasoning, experimenting, and analyzing to deliver high-quality results 10-100x faster than humans. We are turning weeks of manual systems engineering into hours of automated, high-performance output. The company was founded by MIT Professors Mohammad Alizadeh and Hari Balakrishnan and two of their recent PhDs, based on a decade of award-winning research at MIT CSAIL. Backed by $13.5M in VC and angel funding, we are now scaling our engineering organization to meet the demands of the AI era.

About the Role

We are hiring an AI Systems Engineer who blends strong systems instincts with enthusiasm for AI. This is not a role for someone who wishes AI would “go away”; we want engineers who lean into AI as a collaborator and tool for discovering new ideas in computer and networked systems. The goal is to truly transform computer systems design and optimization with AI. You will help design, build, and ship the first versions of Glia’s product, working closely with the founders and engineering team to translate deep research into production systems.

What You’ll Do

● Design, build, and deploy core components of Glia’s AI-driven optimization stack.

● Collaborate with the founders to translate research insights into real, usable systems.

● Own critical pieces of the platform: routing, scheduling, autoscaling, hardware

selection, inference engine integrations, and more.

● Build prototypes quickly, validate them, and iterate based on user and customer

feedback.

● Help establish technical architecture, coding standards, and best practices for a

high-velocity engineering culture.

● Set up development workflows, infrastructure, tooling, and deployment pipelines.

● Evaluate third-party tools/services and make key build vs. buy decisions.

● Document design and development work and help establish the foundation for future

engineering hires.

What We’re Looking For

Because this field is new, we don’t expect years of experience. We’re looking for engineers

with great systems intuition, intellectual curiosity, and a strong desire to embrace AI-driven

engineering.

Strong signals include:

● Experience with AI inference, distributed serving, model optimization, and related

topics.

● Hands-on with vLLM, PyTorch, Triton inference server, Ray Serve, or other inference

frameworks

● Experience with GPU optimization, kernel design, CUDA programming, and low-level

systems performance engineering

● Strong Python and PyTorch fundamentals

● Comfort in building large-scale, high-performance distributed systems

● PhD or equivalent experience (PhD or equivalent + ~5 years is a good sweet spot)

● Dislike for rigid bureaucratic engineering processes, but appreciation for disciplined

engineering rigor.

Why Join Glia AI?

● Strong pedigree: Work alongside a team of renowned experts in AI-driven systems.

● Massive impact: Our technology has demonstrated the ability to achieve significant

improvements in long-running engineering research and design tasks spanning

performance engineering, model pipeline development, and cost optimization..

● Robust financials: Our seed round ($13.5M) closed in September 2025; we’re backed

by top-tier VC firms (Pillar, E14, and Neotribe), as well as luminaries like Jeff Dean, Ion

Stoica, Aparna Chennapragada, Nick McKeown, Srinivas Narayanan, and more. We are

in the midst of multiple paid PoCs with marquee customers.

● Solving hard problems: We are solving the fundamental bottlenecks of the AI

revolution: quality, performance, and cost.

Pay: $30,000.00 - $1,000,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Parental leave
• Relocation assistance
• Retirement plan

Work Location: In person