AI Engineer & Researcher - Data / Crawling

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, ideal for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity. Engineers are encouraged to work across multiple areas of the company, and all engineers and researchers share the title 'Member of Technical Staff.' We operate with a flat organizational structure where all employees are expected to be hands-on and contribute directly to the company's mission. Leadership is granted to those who show initiative and consistently deliver excellence, with an emphasis on work ethic and strong prioritization skills.

All engineers and researchers are expected to possess strong communication skills, able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates. xAI does not utilize recruiters; every application is reviewed directly by a technical team member.

Tech Stack: Python, JAX, Rust, Spark

Location: The role is based in the Bay Area (San Francisco and Palo Alto). Candidates should be located near the Bay Area or open to relocation.

Focus: Responsibilities include:

• Building petabyte-scale, high-throughput data processing systems
• Managing workloads across large cloud compute clusters
• Pre-processing datasets for AI training

Ideal Experience:

• Strong engineering skills with a passion for improving various aspects of data and models
• Experience in modalities other than text, demonstrating exceptional work
• Building bespoke data processing libraries from scratch
• Designing and implementing distributed systems in Rust
• Keeping up with state-of-the-art techniques for preparing AI training data
• Organizing and meticulously bookkeeping data across multiple clouds, modalities, and sources

Interview Process: After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work. If you pass this stage, you will be invited to a 15-minute phone interview with a team member to discuss basic questions. Successful candidates will proceed to the main process, consisting of four technical interviews:

• Coding assessment in a language of your choice
• Hands-on systems demonstration in a live problem-solving session
• Project deep-dive: Present your past exceptional work to a small audience
• Meet and greet with the wider team

Our goal is to complete the main process within one week. All interviews will be conducted via Google Meet, and we do not rely on recruiters for assessments.

Annual Salary Range: $180,000 - $440,000 USD

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