[Remote in US] AI Kernel Engineer – RISC-V Software Stack

Overview
Mentium Technologies Inc. is seeking an Embedded Software Engineer to develop and optimize high-performance compute software for our custom RISC-V-based vision AI accelerator.
You will work at the intersection of embedded systems, computer architecture, and machine learning, developing high-performance compute kernels, runtime components, libraries, and developer-facing SDK tools. A key part of the role will be efficiently mapping compute-intensive workloads such as convolution, matrix multiplication, and signal-processing operations onto a multicore RISC-V SoC.
The role focuses heavily on vector/SIMD execution, memory optimization, data movement, multicore parallelism, and low-level performance optimization.
Prior RISC-V experience is valuable but not required. Engineers with backgrounds in ARM NEON/SVE, x86 SIMD/AVX, DSP software, GPU kernel programming, embedded performance optimization, or other low-level parallel architectures are encouraged to apply.
You will collaborate closely with RTL design, system architecture, software, and machine learning teams to turn architectural capabilities into a practical, high-performance, and extensible software platform.

Key Responsibilities
Develop and optimize high-performance ML and DSP compute kernels, including operations such as convolution, matrix multiplication, activation functions, pooling, image-processing primitives, and related numerical workloads
Optimize computationally intensive C/C++ code for vector/SIMD execution, multicore processing, and the SoC memory hierarchy
Build reusable compute libraries, runtime components, APIs, and developer-facing components for the Mentium SDK
Develop efficient data-movement, memory-management, and workload-scheduling strategies
Optimize the use of caches, scratchpad memories, DMA engines, and on-chip memory resources
Profile workloads and identify compute, memory-bandwidth, synchronization, and system-level performance bottlenecks
Perform low-level performance analysis using profiling, benchmarking, cycle measurements, and hardware/software debugging tools
Integrate optimized compute kernels and runtime components into AI model deployment and inference workflows
Develop functional tests, performance benchmarks, reference examples, and SDK documentation
Collaborate closely with RTL and system-architecture engineers to validate hardware features and improve end-to-end system performance
Contribute to the architecture and programming model of Mentium's RISC-V accelerator software stack
Evaluate and adapt relevant open-source libraries, runtimes, compiler technologies, and numerical software
Help define software requirements and provide feedback that influences future hardware architecture

Required Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
3+ years of combined relevant industry, graduate research, doctoral research, or applied research experience
Strong programming skills in C and/or C++
Experience developing or optimizing performance-critical software
Experience with at least one area of low-level performance programming, such as:
SIMD or vector programming
DSP programming
GPU kernel programming
Assembly or intrinsic-based optimization
Performance-critical embedded software
Numerical or high-performance computing
Solid understanding of computer architecture, memory systems, and parallel processing
Experience with performance profiling, benchmarking, low-level debugging, or cycle-level optimization
Familiarity with computational workloads such as convolution, matrix multiplication, image processing, signal processing, or other numerical kernels
Ability to reason about memory access patterns, data locality, computational efficiency, and hardware utilization
Ability to read hardware specifications and work effectively with hardware and RTL engineers
Proficiency with Python for testing, automation, benchmarking, tooling, or application development
Experience with Git and standard collaborative software-development practices
Strong written and verbal communication skills

Preferred Qualifications
Experience in several of the following areas is valuable, but we do not expect candidates to have experience with all of them:
RISC-V instruction-set architecture or the RISC-V Vector Extension (RVV)
ARM NEON or SVE, x86 SSE/AVX, DSP vector architectures, GPUs, or other SIMD/vector processors
Vector intrinsics, assembly programming, compiler intrinsics, or low-level code optimization
DSP, image-processing, numerical-computing, or machine-learning kernel development
Quantized inference, fixed-point arithmetic, INT8/INT16 computation, FP16/BF16, or other reduced-precision numerical formats
DMA, scratchpad memory, cache hierarchies, memory bandwidth optimization, and multicore synchronization
Embedded, bare-metal, real-time, or resource-constrained software development
Multicore SoCs or heterogeneous compute architectures
Open-source RISC-V platforms such as PULP or similar multicore/accelerator systems
Machine-learning frameworks and model formats such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, TFLite, or ONNX
Compiler and deployment technologies such as LLVM, MLIR, TVM, Deeploy, or related systems
SDKs, runtime libraries, numerical libraries, developer tools, or reusable software APIs
Hardware-software co-design, SoC development, FPGA prototyping, architectural simulation, or custom accelerator development
Open-source software or research software development

Why Join Mentium?
At Mentium, you will work at the intersection of custom silicon, RISC-V, high-performance embedded software, and AI.
You will work directly with the engineers designing the underlying hardware and play a central role in determining how developers and machine-learning workloads interact with our accelerator.
Rather than simply programming an existing processor, you will have the opportunity to influence the hardware-software boundary: identifying architectural bottlenecks, developing optimized compute kernels, evaluating new programming approaches, and providing feedback that can shape future generations of the hardware.
Benefits:
Competitive compensation packages
Opportunity to work on diverse, cutting-edge AI projects across a range of industries.
401(k)
Flexible PTO
Full PPO medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage

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