Software Engineer - Search Infrastructure
xAI is hiring a Software Engineer - Search Infrastructure in Palo Alto, United States. It pays $150k-$400k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on xAI.
Level's read on this job
- Builds AI ●●●● is how Level rates this software engineer role: the job is building AI systems.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include Rust, C and Elasticsearch.
- Level classifies it as a senior role.
- Level lists 297 other open roles at xAI.
AI in this role
Design and build large-scale search infrastructure and distributed systems for AI-powered platforms.
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.
SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.
ABOUT THE ROLE:
As a backend engineer, you’ll design and build scalable, high-performance systems that power subscriptions infrastructure, new monetized products, user growth, and creator monetization. You’ll work on mission-critical infrastructure that processes millions of transactions, optimizes user acquisition and retention, and enables creators to earn a living through their content. This is a unique opportunity to make a large-scale revenue impact while creating products that users and businesses love.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Design and build large scale search infrastructure (real-time indexing, serving, and data pipelines) that handles massive write and query loads with strict latency and reliability requirements
- Go deep into search internals (indexing, query execution, and relevance) and help shape the technical direction of the core search infrastructure
- Operate production services end to end, including monitoring, debugging, incident response, and performance optimization
- Lead and drive incident responses and recovery with your peers. Review and contribute to incident postmortems and hold a high bar for the same
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
- 5+ years developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or experience with storage or hardware architecture.
- Proficient in high performance Rust, C++ or JVM-based languages
- Hands-on experience with search and indexing technologies (Elasticsearch, Lucene, or similar) and an understanding of how they work and why
- Experience with operating system internals, filesystems, networking, or database storage engines
- Obsessed performance, reliability, scalability and quality
- Ability to take full ownership of problems and learn whatever is needed to solve them
- Comfortable moving quickly in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities and tight deadlines
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
- Contributions to open-source search or infrastructure projects
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
$150,000 - $400,000 USD
Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXSI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.
SpaceXSI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our Recruitment Privacy Notice.
How we rate this
Software Engineer - Search Infrastructure at xAI rates 85 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $150k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 11% below the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a project where distributed systems was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where search infrastructure was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where backend engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where performance optimization was part of your work. What did you do?
- Walk me through how you've used Rust in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Systems, Search Infrastructure, Backend Engineering, Performance Optimization, and Rust. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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