Elon Musk‘s artificial intelligence startup xAI is actively recruiting infrastructure engineers for its supercomputing division, offering roles with salaries ranging from $180,000 to $440,000 annually as the company pursues AI development projects.
Key Hiring Focus On Kubernetes, Traffic Management
xAI is specifically seeking engineers with expertise in Kubernetes clusters and traffic management systems. The Infrastructure Engineering – Traffic role, based in San Francisco and Palo Alto, requires candidates with more than 2 years of Kubernetes experience and proficiency in L4/L7 proxies like Envoy and NGINX.
According to an ‘X’ post by Aditya Prerepa, an xAI team member, the company offers opportunities to “work with a lean and fast-moving team while shipping massive impact to many users worldwide.” The role involves building traffic platforms that manage production inference engines across multiple clusters.
Technical Requirements and Compensation Structure
The position demands deep technical expertise in service discovery systems, cloud networking primitives, and debugging performance issues spanning L3 to L7 network layers. Candidates must demonstrate experience with Domain Name Systems (DNS) like CoreDNS and familiarity with Kubernetes Container Network Interface (CNI) plugins such as Calico or Cilium.
Musk emphasized xAI’s “merit-based compensation system” in recent social media posts, stating that exceptional performance can significantly impact compensation levels. The company’s benefits package includes equity, comprehensive medical coverage, and 401(k) plans.
Leadership Transitions Amid Expansion
The hiring push coincides with notable leadership changes at xAI. Co-founder Igor Babuschkin recently announced his departure to focus on AI safety initiatives through his new venture, Babuschkin Ventures. His exit follows that of top lawyer Robert Keele, marking the second major departure within a month.
Babuschkin highlighted xAI’s achievement in building the Memphis supercluster in just 120 days, a project that industry veterans had deemed impossible. The supercluster represents a critical component of xAI’s infrastructure supporting advanced models like Grok 4.
Strategic Market Position
Musk has positioned xAI as having “vastly more market capitalization growth potential than Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META),” citing an influx of Meta engineers joining xAI. The company recently secured government contracts through “Grok for Government” initiatives and announced partnerships enabling federal agencies to procure xAI tools.
The infrastructure expansion supports xAI’s broader ambitions, including the development of “Macrohard,” an AI-simulated software company that Musk describes as “very real” despite its tongue-in-cheek name referencing Microsoft Corp.(NASDAQ:MSFT).
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo courtesy: Shutterstock/Kemarrravv13
