P

AI

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

Founded2026
Location
Palo Alto, United States
LinkedInLinkedIn

The team at Photon

See everyone on LinkedIn

Michael Melnik

CPO at Stealth

Toly Moss

CEO & Co Founder at Stealth

BS

Bryan Smith

Engineering & Technology Leader | Experienced VPE | Executive | Director

YO

Yaron Oliker

Solving on-the-job continous learning for AI agents. Stay tuned

Alon Nitzan

Co-Founder & CEO at Stealth Mode Startup

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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