Senior/Staff Backend Compiler Engineer

About Us

Axelera AI is not your regular deep-tech startup. We are creating the next-generation AI platform to support anyone who wants to help advancing humanity and improve the world around us.

In just four years, we have raised a total of $370 million and have built a world-class team of 220+ employees (including 49+ PhDs with more than 40,000 citations), both remotely from 18 different countries and with offices in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, headquartered at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

We have also launched our Metis™ AI Platform, which achieves a 3-5x increase in efficiency and performance, and have visibility into a strong business pipeline exceeding $100 million.

Our unwavering commitment to innovation has firmly established us as a global industry pioneer.

Are you up for the challenge?

Position Overview

We are looking for a Senior/Staff Backend Compiler Engineer to join our Compiler team at Axelera AI.

You will contribute to our inhouse domain-specific language (DSL) by adding new language features and enhancing the existing compiler stack around it. Making the kernel-developer experience as seamless and user-friendly as possible will be one of your primary goals. Furthermore, you will optimize our compiler backend to efficiently map high-level workloads onto our heterogeneous hardware architecture. This includes optimizing compute, memory usage, and data movement across multi-level memory hierarchies and specialized accelerators.

You will collaborate with a talented team of engineers across Europe, working at the intersection of compilers, computer architecture, and high-performance computing. This is your chance to work on cutting-edge AI hardware, influence core compiler design decisions, and make a real impact in a fast-moving startup environment.

Key responsibilities:

• Evolve our kernel language to something that is usable both by developers inside and outside the compiler team and company

• Design and implement backend compiler optimizations to efficiently map workloads onto heterogeneous architectures (CPU, NPU, and specialized accelerators)

• Implement advanced optimization strategies across the compiler stack based on your experience, e.g.: Memory planning, tiling, vectorization, task partitioning, concurrency optimizations (compute and memory), etc.

• Contribute to compiler infrastructure, intermediate representations, and optimization passes

• Analyze performance bottlenecks and implement improvements based on profiling and benchmarking

• Contribute to technical direction, mentor junior engineers, and promote engineering best practices

• Work effectively within a collaborative, distributed engineering team

Qualifications:

• Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field

• 5+ years of experience in compiler development, systems programming, or performance-critical backend software engineering

• Strong understanding of compiler backend concepts, including scheduling, memory optimization, and code generation

• Demonstrated experience optimizing computations at a low level (e.g., tiling, memory planning, concurrent scheduling, task synchronization)

• Basic to solid understanding of computer architecture concepts such as memory hierarchies, DMA controllers, Network-on-Chip (NoC), and modern CPU architectures (e.g., RISC-V, ARM, x86)

• Familiarity with heterogeneous computing architectures (e.g., CPU + accelerator such as GPU, NPU, DSP, or similar)

• Strong programming skills in Python and good proficiency in C++

• Experience working collaboratively in a team environment

Nice to have:

• Experience with modern compiler frameworks such as MLIR, LLVM, or TVM

• Experience working with domain-specific languages (DSLs) such as Triton, cuTile, or similar

• Experience with RISC-V architecture, including vector extensions

• Experience optimizing deep learning or high-performance computing workloads

• Experience working close to hardware or with hardware/software co-design

• Experience in performance analysis, profiling, and optimization

Location

We offer a flexible working arrangement, with options to:

• Work from one of our Axelera AI offices (Leuven in Belgium, Amsterdam and Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Zurich in Switzerland, Florence and Milan in Italy or Bristol in the United Kingdom) if you're already based in the vicinity.

• Work fully remotely from any European country (incl. the UK) you are already in.

• Relocate with us and work from Italy (Florence or Milan) or the Netherlands (Amsterdam or Eindhoven).

Kindly note that priority will be given to candidates who are [interested in being] based in Belgium or Italy.

What we offer

This is your chance to shape and be part of a dynamic, fast-growing, international organization. We offer an attractive compensation package, including a pension plan, extensive employee insurances and the option to get company shares.

An open culture that supports creativity and continual innovation is awaiting you. Collaborative ownership and freedom with responsibility is characteristic for the way we act and work as a team.

At Axelera AI, we wholeheartedly embrace equal opportunity and hold diversity in the highest regard. Our steadfast commitment is to cultivate a warm and inclusive environment that empowers and celebrates every member of our team. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds to join us in shaping the future of AI.