AI Engineer & Researcher - Pretraining and Scaling

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. Engineers are encouraged to work across multiple areas of the company, and as a result, 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 in contributing directly to the company's mission. Leadership is given to those who show initiative and consistently deliver excellence, with an emphasis on work ethic and strong prioritization skills. Additionally, all engineers and researchers must possess strong communication skills to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates. xAI does not have recruiters; every application is reviewed directly by a technical member of the team.

Tech Stack:

• Languages: Python / Rust / C++
• Libraries: JAX and XLANCCL
• Hardware: CUDA (C++ and Triton)

Location:

The 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.

Focus:

• Training trillion parameter neural networks at scale, as well as a variety of smaller specialized models.
• Rapidly implementing the latest state-of-the-art methods from the deep learning literature.
• Innovating new ideas for pretraining and new scaling paradigms.

Ideal Experience:

• Expert in machine learning and large model scaling with familiarity in all kinds of scaling laws.
• Good at understanding training through careful ablations.
• Experience in optimizing model training efficiency.
• Familiarity with distributed training and parallelism strategies.

Interview Process:

• After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work.
• If your application passes, you will be invited to a 15-minute phone interview for basic questions.
• If cleared, you will enter the main process, consisting of four technical interviews:
• Coding assessment in a language of your choice.
• Systems hands-on: Demonstrate practical skills 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 finish the main process within one week. All interviews will be conducted via Google Meet.

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

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