Network Engineer - Backbone

<div class="content-intro"><h3><strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">About xAI</span></strong></h3> <p><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Our team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">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. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">All employees are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.</span></p></div><p><strong>About the Role</strong></p> <p>Grok and X are powered largely from our own on-premise infrastructure which enables us to move at speed and efficiency when deploying vast amounts of capacity. People wouldn’t be able to enjoy participating in the townhall on X or use Grok to understand the universe if it weren’t for our global transport infrastructure.</p> <p>We are seeking a highly experienced engineer that can design, develop, deploy and operate our global backbone infrastructure. Successful engineers will partner with internal teams on requirements and also leverage our own systems for insights in their use to ensure our current products meet their future needs. Python and Ansible will be used extensively each week to automate customer impact mitigations and remove repetitive engineering cycles so we can focus on what matters most.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Required Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>10+ years working on backbone network hardware and their protocols (MPLS RSVP TE++) in a large/hyper scale environment.</li> <li>10+ years of routing experience (BGP, IS-IS) within backbones, peering and transit areas with deep skills in traffic engineering.</li> <li>5+ years experience with Python scripting and the ability to automate repetitive tasks for deployments and break/fix.</li> <li>5+ years experience managing and troubleshooting cloud VPCs and connected network hardware.</li> <li>Experience with Juniper, Cisco and Arista hardware.</li> <li>Experience with AWS, GCP and OCI clouds.</li> <li>Experience capacity planning on large networks with minimal customer input.</li> </ul> <ul> <li>Proven track record in on-call rotations and incident response in high-stakes environments.</li> <li>Strong problem-solving skills and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, ambiguous setting.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Preferred Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li>5+ years working with IP Transit and peering networks.</li> <li>Strong TCP/IP Troubleshooting skills</li> <li>Experience with CGNAT and Load Balancers</li> </ul> <p><strong>Interview Process</strong></p> <p>After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to an initial interview during which a member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the initial phone interview, you will enter the main process, which consists of five interviews:</p> <ol> <li>Coding assessment in a language of your choice.</li> <li>Backbone network technologies and protocols</li> <li>Routing interview</li> <li>Manager Fit Interview.</li> <li>Meet and greet with the team with a presentation of a large scale solution or problem you owned, start to finish.</li> </ol> <h3><strong>Annual Base Salary&nbsp;</strong></h3> <p>$180,000 - $440,000 USD</p> <h3><strong>Benefits</strong></h3> <p>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 &amp; long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.</p><div class="content-conclusion"><p><em>xAI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our&nbsp;</em><em><a href="https://x.ai/legal/recruitment-privacy-notice" target="_blank">Recruitment Privacy Notice</a>.</em></p></div>