Level

xAI

Software Engineer - Voice Model

xAI is hiring a Software Engineer - Voice Model in Palo Alto, United States. It pays $150k-$450k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on xAI.

Level's read on this job

  • On Level's scale, this software engineer role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
  • Tools and skills the posting cites include PyTorch, JAX and fine tuning.
  • Level lists 296 other open roles at xAI.

AI in this role

pytorchjax
fine-tuning

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

You'll join the Grok Voice Model team as a software engineer. You'll design, build, and run the software systems behind Grok Voice, which delivers natural, low-latency, multilingual spoken interactions across devices and in real time. The team owns the full engineering stack behind the model, from large-scale data processing to distributed training to production deployment.

RESPONSIBILITIES 

  • Design, build, and maintain large-scale distributed data pipelines that ingest, process, and annotate real-world and synthetic audio, so the training and evaluation systems get reliable, high-quality data.
  • Build and optimize the distributed training infrastructure and software for speech-language models in JAX and PyTorch, including the systems that run supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning at scale.
  • Build automated evaluation and testing systems that measure accuracy, audio quality, latency, and real-time performance, plus the experimentation infrastructure used to validate every model release.
  • Integrate voice models into production applications and real-time services, write the technical specifications for spoken interactions, and own deployment from prototype to global scale with a focus on stability, low latency, and reliability.
  • Profile and optimize system performance across training and inference, including throughput, latency, memory use, and compute efficiency.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS 

  • Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related engineering field.
  • Expert-level Python, writing clean, efficient, production-quality code for large-scale systems.
  • Hands-on experience building distributed data processing systems with tools like Spark and Ray.
  • Experience building and running large-scale distributed training and inference systems on Kubernetes.
  • Experience implementing and optimizing model training and inference software in JAX or PyTorch.
  • Experience building automated testing, evaluation, and A/B experimentation pipelines for production systems.
  • A proactive, self-driven attitude and the ability to deliver in a fast-paced, high-caliber team.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$150,000 - $450,000 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 - Voice Model at xAI rates 97 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.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ 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

Fine-tuningPyTorchJAX

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

  1. Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
  2. Walk me through how you've used PyTorch in your day-to-day work.
  3. What are the limits of JAX that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
  4. How would you decide a model or AI system is ready to ship?
  5. Tell me about a time a model underperformed in production. How did you find out, and what did you change?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: Fine-tuning, PyTorch, and JAX. 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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