Open to new PhD Graduates - Systems Research Engineer - Distributed Systems / OS / AI Infrastructure - #2194194

Systems Research Engineer - Distributed Systems / OS / AI Infrastructure

Join a global technology organisation carrying out ambitious research into the computing infrastructure behind large-scale cloud and AI platforms. Working across operating systems, distributed computing, networking, storage and accelerator-based hardware, the company is exploring fundamental systems problems and turning the strongest ideas into technology used in real deployments.

This research engineering role is a chance to combine original systems research with hands-on building. The work covers scalable infrastructure design, performance engineering, heterogeneous computing and the systems that underpin AI training and inference. The team welcomes people from many systems backgrounds.

The position is a full time permanent position based on-site in Edinburgh.

Role Overview

You will take ownership of open-ended systems research problems: spotting where current infrastructure falls short, proposing new approaches and building working prototypes to test them.

Your work will run from defining the problem and forming hypotheses, through implementation, benchmarking and in-depth performance analysis, to publishing at top-tier venues. You will work alongside senior researchers and architects to move proven concepts into production-grade technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Find promising research directions in large-scale computing, then design, build and evaluate new systems, algorithms and abstractions.
• Profile complex software and hardware stacks to find performance limits, and develop new ways to improve throughput, scalability, efficiency and resource usage.
• Explore and prototype infrastructure for emerging workloads, including heterogeneous and accelerator-based computing, AI training and serving, large-scale data processing and cloud-native platforms.
• Write rigorous, original research for leading systems conferences such as OSDI, SOSP, NSDI, EuroSys, SoCC and MLSys.
• Work with researchers, architects and engineering teams across the wider organisation to validate ideas and turn successful work into deployable infrastructure.

Required Experience

• PhD in computer systems, distributed computing or large-scale AI infrastructure. Open to new PhD Graduates 2026.
• Solid grounding in computer systems, covering one or more of: operating systems, distributed systems, computer architecture or cloud platforms.
• Strong systems programming skills in C/C++ (or a similar language), plus Python for prototyping and running experiments.
• Proven ability to build and assess systems through careful experimental design, benchmarking and profiling.
• An analytical approach to problem solving and a real curiosity about original systems research.
• Clear communication skills and comfort working within a multidisciplinary research group.
• Preferred: Papers published at, or the clear potential to publish at, leading systems conferences.
• Preferred: Experience in areas such as resource scheduling, performance engineering, heterogeneous computing or ML systems.
• Preferred: Knowledge of AI infrastructure, such as model serving, distributed training, accelerator platforms or inference optimisation.

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