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    NI

    Nio

    Automotive

    Sr. Staff Performance Tuning Engineer (CPU PMU & Virtualization)

    San Jose-US, United StatesOn-SiteFull-time8+ yrs experience$192.1k – $249.6k / yearPosted 1mo ago
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    Job description

    JOB DESCRIPTION

    About NIO

    NIO is a pioneer and a leading company in the premium smart electric vehicle market. Founded in November 2014, NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle. NIO aims to build a community starting with smart electric vehicles to share joy and grow together with users.

    NIO designs, develops, jointly manufactures and sells premium smart electric vehicles, driving innovations in next-generation technologies in autonomous driving, digital technologies, electric powertrains and batteries. NIO differentiates itself through its continuous technological breakthroughs and innovations, such as its industry-leading battery swapping technologies, Battery as a Service, or BaaS, as well as its proprietary autonomous driving technologies and Autonomous Driving as a Service, or ADaaS.

    NIO’s product portfolio consists of the ES8, a six-seater smart electric flagship SUV, the ES7 (or the EL7), a mid-large five-seater smart electric SUV, the ES6, a five-seater all-round smart electric SUV, the EC7, a five-seater smart electric flagship coupe SUV, the EC6, a five-seater smart electric coupe SUV, the ET7, a smart electric flagship sedan, and the ET5, a mid-size smart electric sedan.

    Responsibilities

    Performance Analysis and Optimization

    • Identify and analyze performance bottlenecks across CPU, memory hierarchy, cache, interconnect, and interrupt subsystems.
    • Leverage hardware PMU counters to measure and interpret cycles, instructions, cache misses, branch mispredictions, TLB misses, and stall cycles.
    • Compute and analyze performance metrics such as IPC, CPI, MPKI, memory bandwidth utilization, and stall breakdowns.
    • Optimize system software, applications, and drivers for throughput, latency, and performance determinism.

    Virtualization Performance Tuning

    • Profile and reduce hypervisor overhead, including VM exits, interrupt injection, and stage-2 MMU translation costs.
    • Optimize vCPU placement strategies, huge page usage, and IRQ affinity for performance-sensitive workloads.
    • Analyze and tune virtio and IOMMU performance paths.
    • Investigate cross-core and cross-cluster latency issues, including IPI overhead and interrupt routing on ARM-based systems.

    CPU PMU and Microarchitectural Analysis

    • Configure and interpret ARM PMUv3 and related vendor-specific performance monitoring extensions.
    • Apply Top-Down Microarchitecture Analysis (TMA) to identify frontend/backend bottlenecks.
    • Correlate PMU-derived metrics with kernel traces, source code paths, and system behavior.
    • Design and implement custom event sets tailored to workload-specific performance characterization.

    Required Qualifications

    • Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
    • 8+ years of experience in system performance engineering or related roles.
    • Strong understanding of computer architecture, including:
      • CPU pipelines, execution engines, and memory hierarchy
      • Interrupt architectures (e.g., GICv3/GICv4, APIC concepts)
      • MMU, virtual memory, and page table structures
    • Deep expertise with Linux performance tooling:
      • perf
      • eBPF / BCC / bpftrace
      • ftrace / trace-cmd
    • Proficiency in C/C++, Python, and shell scripting for performance tooling and automation.

    Preferred Qualifications

    • Hands-on experience with ARM PMUv3 on Cortex-A55/A76/A78 or Neoverse platforms.
    • Experience with one or more virtualization stacks:
      • KVM/QEMU
      • Xen
      • seL4 or other RTOS/hypervisor environments

    Compensation:

    The US base salary range for this full-time position is $192,100.00 - $249,600.00.
    • Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

    • Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only. It does not include discretionary bonus, equity, or benefits.

    Benefits:

    Along with competitive pay, as a full-time NIO employee, you are eligible for the following benefits on the first day you join NIO:

    • Anthem Blue Cross, HSA, and Kaiser HMO medical plans with $0 for Employee Only Coverage.

    • Dental (including orthodontic coverage) and vision plan.  Both provide options with a $0 paycheck contribution covering you and your eligible dependents.

    • Company Paid HSA (Health Savings Account) Contribution when enrolled in the High Deductible Anthem Blue Cross medical plan

    • Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)

    • 401(k) with Brokerage Link option

    • Company paid Basic Life, AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance

    • Employee Assistance Program

    • Sick and Vacation time

    • 13 Paid Holidays a year

    • Paid Parental Leave for first 8 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)

    • Paid Disability Leave for first 6 weeks at full pay (eligible after 90 days of employment with NIO)

    • Voluntary benefits including: Voluntary Life and AD&D options for you, your spouse/domestic partner and dependent child(ren), pet insurance

    • Commuter benefits

    • Mobile Cell Phone Credit

    • Free lunch and snacks

    • Onsite gym

    • Employee discounts and perks program

    Job details are sourced from the employer's original posting.

    Open job posting
    NI

    About the company

    Nio

    NIO is a pioneer and a leading company in the premium smart electric vehicle market. Founded in November 2014, NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle.

    View all Nio jobs
    Industry
    Automotive
    Founded
    2014
    Open roles
    18

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