Lead architecture for Cohere's Model Serving platform running LLMs at scale

This is a senior/lead infrastructure role on Cohere's Model Serving team, setting architecture and technical direction for serving Cohere's LLMs via low-latency, high-throughput, high-availability API endpoints on Kubernetes and GPUs across multiple clouds. Expect deep distributed systems, Kubernetes/GPU, and multi-cloud cost/ops questions plus technical leadership scope.

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What this interview tests

Distributed systems architecture on Kubernetes with GPU workloads
Multi-cloud and hybrid/on-prem serving strategy (GCP/Azure/AWS/OCI)
Accelerator (GPU/TPU) performance characteristics for latency/throughput
Org-level compute/storage/network cost and optimization ownership
Technical leadership: setting standards, senior-level code review, mentoring
Customer-facing technical leadership for custom deployments

Common question themes

Design a low-latency, high-throughput LLM serving system on Kubernetes with GPU workloads

How do you decide between multi-cloud vs on-prem for a large-scale inference deployment

Explain how you'd optimize throughput given accelerator compute characteristics

Walk through how you've owned infra cost management and driven savings at an org level

Tell me about setting engineering standards and reviewing senior engineers' designs

How would you lead a customized deployment for an enterprise customer with unique requirements

How candidates describe it

Real Lead Member of Technical Staff interview stories — retold from candidates' public write-ups, with sources.

Salesforce · SMTS / LMTS (Senior / Lead Member of Technical Staff)No offer

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Interviewed October 2023 · Not specified

Oracle · Member of Technical Staff (IC-2), OCIOffer

Oracle OCI IC-2 Interview: Phone Screen and Five-Round Virtual Onsite (Seattle, 2020)

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Interviewed September 2020 · Seattle, WA

Salesforce · SMTS (Senior Member of Technical Staff)Offer

Salesforce SMTS Interview Experience: Bengaluru, 2023

A five-plus-year engineer's account of interviewing for a Salesforce SMTS role in Bengaluru, covering a timed coding round, an in-memory file system design round, and a hiring manager conversation, ending in an offer.

Interviewed October 2023 · Bengaluru

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