Software Engineer - Platform Infrastructure (Rust, C++)

xAI's mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. You will join a small, highly motivated team focused on engineering excellence. The organization operates with a flat structure where all employees are expected to be hands-on and contribute directly to the company's mission.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and implement a large-scale distributed system powering one of the world's largest supercomputing clusters.
• Profile, debug, and optimize performance across diverse systems, including GPUs, Linux kernel, networking, and filesystems.
• Collaborate on hardware, software, and algorithm co-design to advance AI training.
• Maintain and innovate the codebase to ensure scalability and reliability.
• Develop tools to enhance team productivity and streamline workflows.

Basic Qualifications:

• Experience with systems programming in C, C++, or Rust.
• Understanding of computer systems fundamentals, including how computers execute code from transistors to high-level applications.
• Hands-on expertise with Kubernetes (K8s), including cluster architecture, pod lifecycle, networking, storage, service mesh, and production-grade operations.

Preferred Skills and Experience:

• Strong debugging skills across the full stack, from kernel and OS to container orchestration layers.
• Deep knowledge of operating systems internals, including process scheduling, memory management, file systems, and synchronization primitives.
• Proficiency in performance analysis, profiling, and low-level optimization techniques.
• Solid understanding of computer networks and the TCP/IP stack.
• Experience with Linux kernel concepts or systems-level debugging tools like perf, gdb, strace, and Wireshark.
• Proficiency in deploying and managing workloads using Kubernetes manifests, Helm, Operators, and GitOps workflows.
• Solid understanding of containerization technologies like Docker, containerd, and crio, and their interaction with the Linux kernel.
• Experience with observability and monitoring in distributed systems using Prometheus, Grafana, VictoriaMetrics, OpenTelemetry, or similar.

Compensation and Benefits:

The salary range is $180,000 - $440,000 USD. The total rewards package at xAI also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.