Hardware Engineer, AI Accelerator Power Design

$173K - $245K Austin, TX, US Mid Level AI/ML Engineer

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About This Role

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The ARD team designs accelerator reference platforms for Meta's AI hardware roadmap. This role owns the board-level power delivery system end to end for multi-kilowatt accelerator modules — DC/DC converter design and the PCB power delivery network, from topology and component selection through PDN architecture, stack-up, placement, layout, power integrity simulation, and lab correlation. You will work closely with ASIC, HW platform, thermal, SI/PI, and mechanical teams to co-design the power path, and directly with top-tier external partners and ODMs to drive designs from concept through production.

Hardware Engineer, AI Accelerator Power Design Responsibilities:

  • Own the module power delivery system end to end: DC/DC topology and component selection, regulation scheme, and the PCB power delivery network
  • Set power specifications and efficiency targets for high-power ASIC loads
  • make component and architecture choices against space, thermal, cost, and production-reliability constraints
  • Own PCB physical design of the power path: PDN architecture and optimization, power plane design, stack-up definition, placement analysis, and power circuit layout best practices
  • Define and close power integrity targets through modeling and simulation (DC IR drop, AC impedance, transient response), and correlate simulation against lab measurements
  • Partner with ASIC teams on package/board co-design, including socket and interposer power path, current density, and on-die vs. on-board decoupling allocation
  • Lead board bring-up, validation, and debug of power rails
  • define measurement methodology for high-current, low-voltage rails
  • Drive design reviews with ODM/CM partners
  • establish layout and DFx best practices adopted across the broader team
  • Explore and develop leading-edge DC/DC and power delivery technologies (e.g., vertical power delivery, near-die power modules) with industry partners
  • Contribute to design guidelines, review checklists, and tooling that raise the quality bar across ARD

Minimum Qualifications:

  • BS in Electrical Engineering or equivalent, plus 8+ years of hardware power design experience (MS + 6 years, or PhD + 4 years)
  • Multiple complex power designs taken to volume production, with ownership of both the converter design and the board-level power delivery path
  • DC/DC power electronics design experience: specification and requirement setting, topology and component selection, regulation scheme definition, and bring-up/validation/troubleshooting
  • Demonstrated efficiency design practice in high-power systems: setting efficiency targets, component selection for efficiency, and trade-offs under space and thermal limitations
  • Deep hands-on PCB physical design experience: PDN design and optimization, power plane design, stack-up definition, placement analysis, and power circuit layout best practices
  • Power integrity expertise: circuit modeling and simulation used to drive design iteration, with proven simulation-to-lab closure, and knowledge of where/how to measure power effectively in DC/DC designs
  • Experience with high-current, low-voltage rails and the decoupling/noise strategy for large digital loads (ASIC, SoC, GPU, or similar)
  • Proficiency with schematic capture and layout tools, and PI/PDN simulation tools (e.g., Ansys SIwave/Q3D, Cadence Sigrity, or equivalent)
  • Lab proficiency: oscilloscopes, electronic loads, thermal imaging, and measurement techniques appropriate to high-current power rails
  • Track record operating independently on ambiguous problems and driving cross-functional efforts to resolution without guidance

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience supporting multiple complex programs in parallel, balancing competing schedules and priorities across concurrent design cycles
  • Experience with thermal/mechanical co-design in dense liquid-cooled or air-cooled modules
  • Experience with 1kW+ accelerator or ASIC-class power delivery, including 48V architectures
  • Experience defining team-wide design standards, review processes, or automation
  • Experience driving vendor and ODM development cycles end to end, including technology roadmap engagement with silicon and passive component suppliers
  • Experience with vertical power delivery, power modules integrated near-die, or backside power delivery concepts
  • Awareness of power delivery technology trends for 1kW-and-beyond ASICs

About Meta:

Meta builds technologies that help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality to help build the next evolution in social technology. People who choose to build their careers by building with us at Meta help shape a future that will take us beyond what digital connection makes possible today—beyond the constraints of screens, the limits of distance, and even the rules of physics.

Meta is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Meta participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. Please note that Meta may leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in connection with applications for employment.

Meta is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at [email protected].

$173,000/year to $245,000/year + bonus + equity + benefits

Individual compensation is determined by skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Compensation details listed in this posting reflect the base hourly rate, monthly rate, or annual salary only, and do not include bonus, equity or sales incentives, if applicable. In addition to base compensation, Meta offers benefits. Learn more about benefits at Meta.

Salary Context

This $173K-$245K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $178K across 1623 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Company Meta
Title Hardware Engineer, AI Accelerator Power Design
Location Austin, TX, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary $173K - $245K
Remote No

About This Role

AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.

Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.

Across the 9,079 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 76% of the market. At Meta, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

Skills in Demand for This Role

Python (18% of roles) Aws (10% of roles) Azure (8% of roles) Rag (7% of roles) Gcp (6% of roles) Pytorch (5% of roles) Claude (5% of roles) Kubernetes (4% of roles)

Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.

Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.

Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

Compensation Benchmarks

AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $211,950 based on 13,048 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200. Disclosed range: $173K to $245K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($256,000) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $111,000; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $229,300; Director: $272,300; VP: $235,830.

Meta AI Hiring

Meta has 52 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Research Scientist, Research Engineer, AI Safety. Positions span New York, NY, Austin, TX, US, Burlingame, CA, US. Compensation range: $170K - $347K.

Location Context

AI roles in Austin pay a median of $209,100 across 306 tracked positions.

Career Path

Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.

The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.

What to Expect in Interviews

Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.

When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 9,079 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 4,384 mid-level, 3,343 senior, and 1,246 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (531 positions). The remaining 8,478 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $213,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $263,911. The 90th percentile reaches $318,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($256,000 median, 66 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 457 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 55 roles).

Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 9,079 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (6,862), AI Product Manager (453), AI Software Engineer (451). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,384) and senior (3,343) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,246 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (531 positions), with 8,478 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,000. Top-quartile roles start at $263,911, and the 90th percentile reaches $318,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $256,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,649 postings), Aws (898 postings), Azure (723 postings), Rag (671 postings), Gcp (536 postings), Pytorch (434 postings), Claude (410 postings), Kubernetes (406 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 13,048 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $211,950. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
About 6% of the 9,079 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Meta is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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