Infrastructure Engineering - Traffic

xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. Our team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity. 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. All engineers are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role

In this role, you will be a key contributor to xAI’s Supercomputing team, focusing on building and optimizing scalable, high-performance traffic platforms that power our production inference engines. You will work on critical systems that manage traffic flow, service discovery, and network reliability across both on-premise and cloud-based Kubernetes clusters. Collaborating closely with Network Fabric Engineers and other technical teams, you will drive projects that enhance the stability and efficiency of our AI infrastructure, including support for large-scale training runs for advanced models like Grok 4 and beyond. This role demands deep technical expertise in Kubernetes, L4 / L7 proxies like Envoy, and service discovery systems, along with a proactive approach to debugging and optimizing complex network performance issues from L3 to L7.

What you’ll do

• Build and optimize traffic platforms that automate and simplify the lifecycle of production inference engines across dozens of on-premise and cloud clusters, managing core traffic primitives like load balancing, routing, overload control, authentication / authorization, encryption in transit.
• Manage, extend, and optimize xAI’s production inference capabilities with L4 / L7 proxies such as Envoy, NGINX.
• Manage and extend xAI’s Service Discovery systems, both in and outside of Kubernetes (DNS, xDS control planes).
• Collaborate with Network Fabric Engineers to improve host networking + fabric stability for large scale training runs (ie Grok 4 and beyond).
• Work with a fast, small technical team to execute projects in the critical path of xAI.

What we’d like to see

Location

This role is based in the Bay Area (San Francisco and Palo Alto). Candidates are expected to be located near the Bay Area or open to relocation.

Envoy / xDS

Golang and Rust

Interview Process

Application Review : Submit your CV and a statement of exceptional work. Our team will review your application to assess fit.

Phone Interview (45 minutes) : A brief conversation with a team member to discuss your background, key accomplishments, and motivation.

Main Interview Process

Annual Salary Range

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

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 & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.

Note

We welcome a variety of formats, such as public writings, presentations, or publications. Submission is optional but highly encouraged.

#J-18808-Ljbffr