---
title: 'Senior Staff Machine Learning Performance Engineer at XPENG'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-machine-learning-performance-engineer-xpeng-santa-clara-pava8nqe7kq7'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-07'
---

# Senior Staff Machine Learning Performance Engineer at XPENG

- **Company:** XPENG
- **Location:** Santa Clara, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-10-27
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xpengmotors/jobs/8918459002

## Job description

XPENG is a leading smart technology company at the forefront of innovation, integrating advanced AI and autonomous driving technologies into its vehicles, including electric vehicles (EVs), electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, and robotics. With a strong focus on intelligent mobility, XPENG is dedicated to reshaping the future of transportation through cutting-edge R&D in AI, machine learning, and smart connectivity.

The Mission: We are building the next generation of end-to-end autonomous driving on physical AI foundation models — vision-language-action policies and world models — and the same training stack carries our robotics program. These training runs span thousands of accelerators and days of wall-clock — how fast we train them is how fast we learn. As a Senior Staff Machine Learning Performance Engineer, you will own that speed: working with the modeling teams on their hardest bottlenecks, setting the technical direction for performance, and turning one-off wins into defaults — including the agentic workflows that find the next round of them automatically.

Job Responsibilities:

- Training Performance at Scale: Own step time, scaling efficiency and long-run stability for foundation-model training across thousands of accelerators — from the data path to kernels, parallelism and communication.

- Cross-Team Technical Leadership: Work directly with the modeling, infrastructure, simulation, data-mining and robotics teams on their hardest bottlenecks, and set the performance direction those teams build against.

- Reusable by Design: Turn one-off wins into modular components that become defaults across most models and workloads, rather than a patch that helps a single job.

- Observability at Scale: Extend performance tooling and metric coverage across the stack, while keeping instrumentation overhead low enough to stay on for production jobs fleet-wide.

- Agentic Automation: Build agents that reproduce any job on demand, verify numerical parity and separate a real regression from run-to-run noise — so that most of the optimizations that land are found and fixed by AI rather than by hand.

Minimum Skill Requirements:

- Master's or PhD in CS, CE or EE, or equivalent practical experience, with 8+ years of industry experience, the majority of it in performance engineering.

- Hands-on experience optimizing GPU training or inference workloads in production, at multi-node scale.

- A track record of diagnosing performance problems in real production workloads and landing the fixes — often in systems owned by other teams — with the gain measured and verified in production.

- In-depth understanding of computer architecture and high-performance computing.

- Strong C++ and Python, with a solid command of data structures and algorithms.

Preferred Skill Requirements:

- Hands-on experience writing and tuning CUDA or Triton kernels.

- Fluent in PyTorch, with concrete insight into what makes PyTorch code fast or slow — graph breaks, host-side overhead, synchronization points and memory layout.

- Training at the scale of thousands of accelerators, including multi-node failure modes and long-running job stability.

- Building profiling, tracing or benchmarking infrastructure that other teams depend on — CUPTI, Perfetto, or equivalent.

- Using LLM agents to automate parts of an engineering workflow.

- Autonomous driving, robotics, or another domain with hard latency, power and memory constraints.

- Publications or open-source contributions in ML systems or performance.

What do we provide:

- A fun, supportive and engaging environment.

- Infrastructures and computational resources to support your work.

- Opportunity to work on cutting edge technologies with the top talents in the field.

- Opportunity to make a significant impact on the transportation revolution by the means of advancing autonomous driving.

- Competitive compensation package.

- Snacks, lunches, dinners, and fun activities.

The base salary range for this full-time position is $244,140, - $413,160, in addition to bonus, equity and benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. It is our policy to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified persons without regard to race, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status or marital status or any other prescribed category set forth in federal or state regulations.

## About XPENG

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: XPENG is a Chinese global AI mobility technology company designing and manufacturing smart electric vehicles, eVTOL aircraft, and humanoid robots, powered by in-house full-stack advanced driver-assistance systems and AI.
- **Entity Type**: Public (NYSE: XPEV, HKEX: 9868)
- **Headquarters**: Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
- **Founded**: 15 August 2014
- **Founders**: He Xiaopeng (Chairman & CEO), Xia Heng (Henry Xia), He Tao, Yang Chunlei

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Automotive, Aerospace, Robotics (AI mobility)
- **Target customers**: B2C (premium smart EV buyers globally), B2B (fleet operators, robotaxi services)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To transform future mobility through intelligent revolution, from road to air, as the "Explorer of Future Mobility" [xpeng.com](https://www.xpeng.com/brand)

## Products & Services
- **Smart Electric Vehicles (EVs)**: SUVs (G6, G9), sedans (P7, P5), and MPVs — all equipped with XPILOT/VLA intelligent driving systems. Type: Hardware + Embedded Software.
- **XPILOT / VLA 2.0**: Full-stack advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) using vision-only sensors and 4D mmWave radar. Type: AI Software.
- **XPeng AeroHT (Land Aircraft Carrier)**: Modular flying car — a 6x6 range-extended eVTOL carrier van. Type: Hardware (eVTOL).
- **IRON Humanoid Robot**: Next-generation general-purpose humanoid robot for embodied AI applications. Type: Hardware + AI Software.
- **Robotaxi**: Mass-produced autonomous ride-hailing vehicle (GX platform), targeting pilot operations in 2026. Type: Service + Hardware.
- **XPENG Charging Network**: Self-operated ultra-fast charging stations (2,398+ ultra-fast stations as of Q1 2026). Type: Infrastructure.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (as of mid-2026, market cap fluctuates with NYSE/HKEX trading).
- **Key Metric**: Full-year 2025 revenue of CN¥76.72 billion (~$10.6B) with 429,445 vehicles delivered (126% YoY growth). Recorded first-ever quarterly net profit in Q4 2025 (RMB0.38B). [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPeng)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**:
  - **Volkswagen Group**: Strategic partner ($700M investment for 4.99% stake in 2023; joint development of E/E architecture and two VW-brand EVs for China).
  - **Alibaba, Foxconn, IDG Capital**: Early investors.
  - **BlackRock**: 5.3% long position in Class A shares (as of Dec 2025).
  - **Salvador Caetano Group**: Distribution partner for Spain/Portugal.
  - **International Motors Ltd**: UK launch partner (2025).
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 126% YoY vehicle delivery growth in 2025.
  - Expanded to 60 countries/regions globally by end of 2025.
  - 96% YoY growth in overseas deliveries (45,008 vehicles in 2025).
  - First quarterly net profit in Q4 2025 (RMB0.38B).
  - Gross margin improved to 20.6% in Q1 2026.
  - 733 physical sales stores across 256 cities in China (as of Q1 2026).
  - Began mass production of robotaxi in May 2026 (Reuters).

## Competitive Advantages
- **In-house full-stack AI stack**: Unique integration of EV hardware, autonomous driving software (VLA 2.0), and AI foundation models — not reliant on third-party suppliers for core intelligence.
- **First-mover in flying cars**: AeroHT subsidiary is a leader in eVTOL vehicles, with the Land Aircraft Carrier entering production.
- **Strong strategic partnership with Volkswagen**: Provides access to global automotive expertise, supply chain leverage, and co-developed platforms.
- **MSCI ESG "AAA" rating** (highest among global automakers for three consecutive years) — a differentiator for ESG-conscious investors and talent. [xpeng.com](https://www.xpeng.com/brand)
- **Global R&D footprint**: Engineering centers in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, San Diego), Munich, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou — enabling talent acquisition across AI, robotics, and automotive domains.

## Strategic Focus
- **Embodied AI & Physical AI**: Shifting from "EV maker" to "global embodied intelligence company" — integrating AI into vehicles, robots, and flying cars.
- **Robotaxi commercialization**: Mass production of robotaxi in 2026, targeting fully driverless operations by early 2027.
- **Global expansion**: Deepening presence in Europe (UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany) and entering new markets (60 countries by end of 2025).
- **Cost efficiency & margin improvement**: Achieving positive quarterly net profit (Q4 2025) and growing gross margins (20.6% in Q1 2026) through scale and platform sharing.
- **VLA 2.0 rollout**: Full deployment of vision-only intelligent driving system across all new models, removing LiDAR for cost reduction.

## Why Work Here
- **Cutting-edge AI & Robotics**: Work on the frontier of autonomous driving, humanoid robots (IRON), and eVTOL aircraft — rare multi-domain exposure.
- **Global, diverse team**: Employees across China, USA (Santa Clara, San Diego), and Europe (Munich) — strong cross-cultural collaboration. [xpeng.com](https://www.xpeng.com/brand)
- **Strong engineering culture**: Open roles in AI infrastructure, computer vision, machine learning (foundation models, perception, end-to-end), robotics (whole-body control, dexterous manipulation), and software engineering. [Greenhouse](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xpengmotors)
- **Growth trajectory**: Rapid scaling (126% delivery growth, new markets, robotaxi launch) — opportunity to make an outsized impact.
- **Public company stability**: Listed on NYSE and HKEX with significant institutional backing (Volkswagen, BlackRock).
- **Perks & environment**: Self-built smart factories (Industrial 4.0), strong ESG commitment (AAA rating), and a mission-driven culture focused on "exploring future mobility."
- **Remote/Hybrid**: Not explicitly stated, but roles are location-specific (Santa Clara, San Diego, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Munich) suggesting on-site/hybrid presence.

## Sources
1. [XPENG Official Brand Page](https://www.xpeng.com/brand)
2. [XPENG Official Website](https://www.xpeng.com/)
3. [XPENG Careers (Greenhouse)](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xpengmotors)
4. [XPENG Join-Us Page](https://www.xpeng.com/join-us)
5. [Wikipedia - XPeng](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPeng)

## Other roles at XPENG

- [Office Supervisor](https://feeny.ai/job/office-supervisor-xpeng-sao-paulo-wzest3emkm8j) — São Paulo, Brazil
- [XPERT Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/xpert-specialist-xpeng-mexico-city-e0h4ans9zhjs) — Mexico City, Mexico
- [Tech Lead — XPENG Robotics Xplore Lab](https://feeny.ai/job/tech-lead-xpeng-robotics-xplore-lab-xpeng-santa-clara-zqgjp96phpb7) — Santa Clara, CA
- [AI Research Intern – Predictive World Model](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-research-intern-predictive-world-model-xpeng-santa-clara-y97vt5d4atn8) — Santa Clara, CA
- [Senior Machine Learning Engineer - AI Foundation](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-machine-learning-engineer-ai-foundation-xpeng-santa-clara-cby2yeq7236m) — Santa Clara, CA
- [Human Resources Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/human-resources-manager-xpeng-sao-paulo-eatjqx8tj3bm) — São Paulo, Brazil
- [Event & Retail Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/event-retail-marketing-manager-xpeng-mexico-city-v6rc25bg00s8) — Mexico City, Mexico
- [Staff Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-machine-learning-engineer-xpeng-santa-clara-am2k1qbg9f2g) — Santa Clara, CA
- [Public Relations Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/public-relations-manager-xpeng-mexico-city-2bnd2y3kxprw) — Mexico City, Mexico
- [Senior Software Engineer, Agentic Platforms](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-agentic-platforms-xpeng-santa-clara-zm41jhnrbtp6) — Santa Clara, CA