Network Engineer - Backbone

About xAI

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

Data Center Fabrics are the foundational building blocks of the complex architecture that enables Grok to be trained and serve customer queries as they learn to understand the universe. To enable us to move faster we are looking for a Core Network Engineering Team Lead in our Palo Alto Office. You will develop and execute the team’s roadmap in collaboration with partner teams. You will guide your team and directly contribute to its network's development, while hiring and developing the world class talent xAI needs to achieve AGI.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, deploy, and operate global backbone infrastructure to ensure high performance and reliability.
• Partner with internal teams to gather requirements and leverage xAI systems for insights to meet current and future product needs.
• Utilize Python and Ansible to automate customer impact mitigations and eliminate repetitive engineering tasks.
• Manage and troubleshoot cloud VPCs and connected network hardware to maintain seamless operations.
• Apply deep traffic engineering skills to optimize backbone network performance.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance infrastructure efficiency and support xAI’s AI platforms.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience working on backbone network hardware and protocols (e.g., MPLS, RSVP-TE) in large or hyperscale environments.
• 5+ years of routing experience with BGP and IS-IS in backbone, peering, and transit areas, with expertise in traffic engineering.
• 3+ years of experience using Python scripting to automate deployments and break/fix tasks.
• 3+ years of experience managing and troubleshooting cloud VPCs and connected network hardware.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Juniper, Cisco, and Arista hardware.
• Familiarity with AWS, GCP, and OCI cloud environments.
• Expertise in capacity planning for large networks with minimal customer input.
• Proven success in on-call rotations and incident response in high-stakes environments.
• Strong problem-solving skills and adaptability in a fast-paced, ambiguous setting.

Annual Base Salary

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

Benefits

Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at X, 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.

xAI is an equal opportunity employer.

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