xAI

Software Engineer, Media

xAI · Palo Alto, CA
Palo Alto, CA $180K–$440K Posted 2026-10-14
Salary
$180K–$440K
Type
Full-time
Experience
5+ yr

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.

SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

We’re looking for exceptional media engineers who want to join us on a new project to deeply integrate SpaceXSI's advanced AI infrastructure into a platform used by around 600 million users every month. We’re bringing SpaceXSI's technology stack and using it to transform the video product experience - video playback, live streaming, Spaces, audio/video calls, and more. This is your chance to contribute in a major way while leveraging all of the powerful AI tools and talented colleagues at SpaceXSI.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Build the next generation of large-scale video services
  • Contribute to and rebuild core media processing and distribution pipelines in high-performance languages (Rust, C++ or Go)
  • Obsess over every millisecond and pixel,  ensuring end-to-end media quality and performance at scale across a rich suite of products and user platforms

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

  • At least 5 years of experience
  • Obsessed with media quality, performance, and product experience
  • Proficient in high performance C++ or Go
  • In-depth knowledge of either WebRTC or LL-HLS or video transcoding pipelines
  • Familiar with building and running scalable and resilient distributed systems

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

  • Go, C++, Rust, Java, Scala
  • Kubernetes, FoundationDB, ValKey, Envoy, S3
  • H.264, H.265, AV1, MP4, CMAF, VMAF, RTP, RTMP, LL-HLS, HDR, DRM

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

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

SpaceXSI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our  Recruitment Privacy Notice .

RustJavaScalaKubernetesC++
$110K — 10th pctl $270K — 90th pctl
This role’s midpoint $310K vs. market median $180K for Engineering roles
+70%
above median
Based on 10,000+ Engineering roles with disclosed salary ranges tracked on NewJob.
xAI

xAI

Artificial Intelligence · Series E+ · Palo Alto, USA

Stage & Valuation
Series E+ · $250B
Key Investors
Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital
Open roles on NewJob
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Engineering (52) · Operations (40) · Design (3)
xAI builds artificial intelligence models and tools to accelerate human scientific discovery and enhance reasoning capabilities. The company develops AI solutions including the Grok platform to understand complex topics and assist users in exploring information.
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