Photon
Photon is an AI infrastructure company building a next-generation inference platform optimized for latency, throughput, and cost efficiency in large language model serving. Founded by Stanford alumni including Bryan Gopal from Together AI, the Palo Alto-based startup is architecting a custom Rust-based inference runtime to address critical LLM deployment challenges.
Work at Photon?
- Location
- Palo Alto
- On-site · 1 role
- Total raised
- $10M
- Salary range
- $230–350k
- + equity · the role
- Visa
- Visa sponsorship
- the role
- Founded
- 2026
Open positions · 1
About Photon
Photon is a founding-stage AI infrastructure company building a next-generation inference platform engineered from the ground up to optimize latency, throughput, and cost efficiency in large language model serving. Founded by Stanford alumni with deep expertise in AI infrastructure, including Bryan Gopal, an early inference lead at Together AI, the company is architecting an entire inference runtime in Rust rather than wrapping existing tools, tackling critical challenges like scheduling, KV cache management, request routing, and runtime systems. Based in Palo Alto and backed by notable investors including Peter Deng, Photon is currently in stealth mode as it prepares to announce its fundraise and product to the market.
Culture & values
Small, elite team of systems engineers who care deeply about the craft of building fast, reliable infrastructure
Ground-floor opportunity to shape architecture without legacy constraints
High pace work environment
Every engineer has outsized ownership and direct impact on core product
Laser-focused on building high-performance inference stack
Performance as a first-order concern in engineering decisions
Team architecting entire runtime from scratch rather than wrapping existing tools
Founding-stage team with significant growth hiring plans
Looking for engineers excited by hardest problems in LLM serving
Founded by engineers with deep roots in AI infrastructure space
Funding
$10Mtotal raised
Company at a glance
The team at Photon
Location
Team Composition
79 people- Entrepreneurship26 senior28
- Engineering11
- Operations1 senior7
- Information Technology1 senior5
- Leadership3 senior3
- Marketing1 senior3
- Product Management1 senior3
- Administrative2
Frequently asked questions
Of 1 open role, Photon has 1 on-site position.
Photon is based in Palo Alto.
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