Software Engineer - Platform Infrastructure (Rust, C++) 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>RESPONSIBILITIES:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Design, build, and implement a large-scale distributed system that powers one of the world's largest supercomputing clusters.</li> <li>Dive into the low-level stack to profile, debug, and optimize performance across diverse systems, including GPUs, Linux kernel, networking, and filesystems, to achieve peak efficiency.</li> <li>Collaborate on hardware, software, and algorithm co-design to push the boundaries of AI training.</li> <li>Maintain and innovate on our codebase to ensure scalability and reliability.</li> <li>Develop tools to enhance team productivity and streamline workflows.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Systems programming experience in C, C++, or Rust</li> <li>Computer systems fundamentals with a grasp of how computers execute code from transistors to high-level applications.</li> <li>Hands-on expertise with Kubernetes (K8s), including cluster architecture, pod lifecycle, networking (CNI), storage (CSI), service mesh, and production-grade operations</li> </ul> <h3><strong>PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Collaborate in a fast-paced, open environment to design and foundational systems.</li> <li>Strong debugging skills across the full stack — from kernel and OS up through container orchestration layers</li> <li>Deep knowledge of operating systems internals (process scheduling, memory management, file systems, and synchronization primitives)</li> <li>Proficiency in performance analysis, profiling, and low-level optimization techniques</li> <li>Solid understanding of computer networks and the TCP/IP stack</li> <li>Experience working with Linux kernel concepts or systems-level debugging tools (e.g., perf, gdb, strace, Wireshark)</li> <li>Proficiency deploying and managing workloads using Kubernetes manifests, Helm, Operators, and GitOps workflows</li> <li>Solid understanding of containerization technologies (Docker, containerd, crio) and their interaction with the Linux kernel</li> <li>Experience with observability and monitoring in distributed systems (Prometheus, Grafana, VictoriaMetrics, OpenTelemetry, or similar)</li> </ul> <h3><strong>COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:</strong></h3> <p>$180,000 - $440,000 USD</p> <p>Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at xAI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short &amp; long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.</p><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>