xAI

Sr. Network Engineer

xAI · Palo Alto, CA
Palo Alto, CA $180K–$330K Posted 2026-11-06
Salary
$180K–$330K
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.

SR. NETWORK ENGINEER

SpaceXSI is building and operating large-scale networks that underpin training and inference infrastructure, including high-performance / supercompute fabrics that connect GPU clusters, plus the core, edge, and datacenter networks that keep that infrastructure reachable and reliable.

We need a Network Engineer who is strong on fundamentals and comfortable owning production network design, deployment, and operations end to end. This is a hands-on engineering seat — not a NOC technician role and not a network-software (telemetry/ZTP platform) SWE role. You will design and build networks, qualify platforms, ship changes safely, and keep availability and performance high as we scale.

Travel to Memphis (and other build sites) may be required for capacity build-outs. You will participate in a team on-call rotation.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Design, deploy, and operate production datacenter and campus/core networks at scale
  • Own routing and switching configuration standards (BGP and at least one IGP such as OSPF or IS-IS), including change design, peer reviews, and execution
  • Qualify new network platforms, optics, and topologies; contribute to architecture and capacity planning
  • Build and improve monitoring, alerting, and operational documentation so issues are caught and fixed quickly
  • Troubleshoot Layer 2/Layer 3 incidents end to end — from link flaps and optics through routing and traffic engineering — and drive root cause and lasting fixes
  • Automate repetitive network tasks with Python, Ansible, or similar tooling where it reduces toil
  • Partner with compute, facilities, and software teams during cluster build-outs and maintenance windows
  • Support high-performance / supercompute network environments (Ethernet AI/HPC fabrics, RoCE/RDMA-capable designs) as part of the broader network estate

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Bachelor’s degree or higher in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, or engineering discipline
  • 5+ years of experience designing and/or operating production networks in a datacenter, ISP, cloud, or large enterprise environment

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

  • Experience troubleshooting live production network incidents and participating in on-call
  • Experience with BGP and at least one interior routing protocol
  • Strong written and verbal communication; clear change docs and incident notes
  • Working knowledge of TCP/IP, VLANs, EVPN/VXLAN or equivalent datacenter overlays, and optics / high-speed Ethernet
  • Experience with modern datacenter vendors (e.g. Arista, Cisco, Juniper, Nvidia/Mellanox)
  • Familiarity with high-performance or supercompute networking (RoCEv2, congestion control, GPU cluster fabrics) — useful context for our environment, not a hard filter
  • Network automation (Python, Ansible, Terraform, or similar) used in production
  • Experience with EVPN, leaf-spine, and large-scale Ethernet fabrics
  • Prior work supporting rapid datacenter or cluster capacity build-outs
  • Deep specialist RoCE/NCCL ownership is a plus, not the bar for this seat

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

  • Willing to work onsite in Palo Alto

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$180,000 - $330,000 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 .

PythonTerraform
$110K — 10th pctl $270K — 90th pctl
This role’s midpoint $255K vs. market median $180K for Engineering roles
+40%
above median
Based on 25,000+ 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
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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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