Optical Engineer - Memphis at xAI

<div class="content-intro"><p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">SpaceXAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Our team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">We operate with a flat organizational structure. All employees are expected to be hands-on and to contribute directly to the company’s mission. Leadership is given to those who show initiative and consistently deliver excellence. Work ethic and strong prioritization skills are important. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">All employees are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.</span></p></div><h3><strong>ABOUT THE ROLE:</strong></h3> <p>The Data Center Engineering team designs training and inference compute clusters from first principles, pushing thermal, electrical, and optical systems to the limit of physics. We operate as a highly cross-disciplinary team of mechanical, electrical, optical, and software engineers, all working to maximize the efficiency, reliability, and deployment speed of terrestrial computing to serve rapidly scaling demand.</p> <p>This team owns compute architecture, datacenter network design, rack builds, connectivity, in-house design of our own computers, and the manufacturing line that builds that compute. As an Optical Engineer, you will own the physical optical layer of that computer: fiber layout, link design, connector and polarity architecture, optics selection, and production of a plant that can be built, tested, and repaired at AI cluster scale.</p> <h3><strong>RESPONSIBILITIES:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Own end-to-end optical and fiber design for AI training and inference fabrics: fiber cabling, cassette/panel architecture, polarity, breakout, reach, and connector strategy (MPO-12/16, SN, MDC, LC, OSFP / QSFP-DD)</li> <li>Write and verify link budgets for scale-out and scale-up interconnect (SMF/MMF, AOC/DAC, DR/FR/LR, InfiniBand and Ethernet), including loss, reflections, FEC, and realistic install margins</li> <li>Develop and implement factory tests for optical interconnects including insertion loss, return loss, and polarization</li> <li>Select and qualify optics, fiber, and connectivity (transceivers, patch, trunks, cassettes, harnesses); own vendor bring-up, failure analysis, and fleet reliability of the optical layer</li> <li>Deploy and verify end-to-end optical interconnect into the manufacturing line</li> <li>Lead commissioning and debug: inspect/clean, power meter, OTDR, BER/FEC stats, and volume failure modes (dirty connectors, wrong polarity, wrong map, damaged end-face)</li> <li>Evolve connectivity toward the next speed and density (800G / 1.6T, CPO/NPO awareness, tighter reaches, higher fiber count per rack)</li> <li>&nbsp;Work with mechanical and network teams to design structured cabling and raceways with the rack and facilities teams: tray fill, bend radius, pre-term vs field-term, labeling, and a plant that can be built and repaired at hall scale</li> </ul> <h3><strong>BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, optical engineering, physics, or a related engineering discipline</li> <li>2+ years of professional experience in fiber layout, optical link design, and/or datacenter/HPC optical engineering</li> </ul> <h3><strong>PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Demonstrated ownership of fiber or optical design that was installed and turned up in a datacenter, HPC, or AI-compute environment</li> <li>Working command of single-mode vs multimode, MPO polarity, insertion/return loss, and 100G+ transceiver classes</li> <li>Hands-on optical test: inspect/clean, power meter, OTDR or equivalent</li> <li>Fiber interconnect ownership for AI / high-compute clusters (GPU scale-out fabric, InfiniBand NDR/XDR, RoCE Ethernet 400/800G)</li> <li>High-density pre-terminated trunk/cassette design and rack-to-spine optical mapping at hall scale</li> <li>Optics vendor qualification at volume (OSFP, 800G DR8/2xFR4, AOCs, and the failure modes that show up in a real fleet)</li> <li>Experience designing optical harnesses or cassettes for a manufacturing line, including test coverage and yield</li> <li>DWDM / campus DCI for cluster-to-cluster or building-to-building connectivity</li> <li>Familiarity with CPO/NPO, linear-drive optics, and next-gen packaging as it hits the rack</li> <li>Time at a high-velocity AI cloud, GPU cloud, or custom-compute hardware team</li> </ul> <h3><strong>ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed to support design releases, line bring-up, and cluster deployments</li> <li>Must be willing to travel to manufacturing and datacenter sites</li> <li>Ability to work in active datacenter and factory environments, including fiber inspection, cleaning, and live debug</li> </ul><div class="content-conclusion"><p><em>SpaceXAI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our </em><em><a href="https://x.ai/legal/recruitment-privacy-notice" target="_blank">Recruitment Privacy Notice</a>.</em></p></div>