Systems Software Engineer, Accelerated Kubernetes Performance and Scale - New College Grad 2026
NVIDIA Corporation · Santa Clara, CA
$108,000–$195,500from the description
Jul 16, 2026
Santa Clara, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
This role sits within the DGX Cloud organization and focuses on performance, scalability, and architectural work across a Kubernetes-based accelerated computing stack. Day-to-day work spans profiling and improving control/data plane behavior at hyperscale cluster sizes, contributing upstream changes to Kubernetes and CNCF projects, reducing container cold-start latency, and advancing confidential container performance — all in support of large GPU-driven AI workloads. It suits engineers with hands-on Kubernetes and distributed systems experience who are comfortable working in open-source communities.
Mid level · Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 2,350 people in the Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 1,200–3,650
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (10)
The role spans two levels: Level 1 ($108,000–$178,250) and Level 2 ($124,000–$195,500); the max figure reflects the top of Level 2.
SOC classification is Medium confidence: the role involves substantial upstream code contributions and architectural changes to Kubernetes (15-1252), but also has a strong performance/scalability analysis and systems operations flavor that could lean toward 15-1244. The code-shipping emphasis tips it to Software Developers.
Golang and Python are listed together with 'and/or', making them interchangeable gates — emitted as a single requirement with alternatives.
Cloud provider experience ('at least one of AWS, Azure, GCP, or OCI') is a required gate with named alternatives captured accordingly.
The posting targets recent graduates (Bachelor's/Master's/PhD) or equivalent experience, so no minimum degree is hard-required; 'equivalent experience' is explicitly accepted.
NVIDIA's CNCF ecosystem familiarity and NVIDIA software stack knowledge appear with softer language ('familiarity with') in the required section — treated as preferred given the hedged phrasing.
CI/CD and open-source contribution appear in the 'Ways to stand out' (preferred) section.
No overall years-of-experience floor is stated; the recent-graduate framing and dual Level 1/2 structure suggest the role is sized at Mid seniority despite the technical depth described.
Location is not explicitly stated in the posting; NVIDIA's DGX Cloud organization is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA. The posting mentions a preference for hybrid work while remaining open to remote — remote is not fully guaranteed, so remote=false.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): NVIDIA GPU software stack.
Read the full posting
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