SECTION I · THE BRIEF
Brief #46318Updated 30 OCT 2026 PALO ALTO, CAGreenhouse
Employbl Company Profile

Sr. Software Engineer, Search Infrastructure

AI company building the Grok family of models and consumer and API products on top of them.

Location
Palo Alto, CA
Company size
1,000–2,000
Posted
Today
Via
Greenhouse
Section II · Full ProfileFree with an account
  • 01Comp band & equity packageLocked
  • 02Seniority & experience requirementsLocked
  • 03Interview process & rubricLocked
  • 04Headcount & which departments are hiringLocked
  • 05Growth trajectory in this roleLocked
  • 06Offer & decision timelineLocked

Free · 2 minutes · the funding and stack behind this role

Sr. Software Engineer, Search Infrastructure

xAI· Palo Alto, CAView company profile


Job title
Sr. Software Engineer, Search Infrastructure
Job location
Palo Alto, CA
Job description

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. SOFTWARE ENGINEER, SEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE

As a senior backend engineer, you’ll design and build scalable, high-performance systems that power subscriptions infrastructure, new monetized products, user growth, and creator monetization. You’ll work on mission-critical infrastructure that processes millions of transactions, optimizes user acquisition and retention, and enables creators to earn a living through their content. This is a unique opportunity to make a large-scale revenue impact while creating products that users and businesses love.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Design and build large scale search infrastructure (real-time indexing, serving, and data pipelines) that handles massive write and query loads with strict latency and reliability requirements
  • Go deep into search internals (indexing, query execution, and relevance) and help shape the technical direction of the core search infrastructure
  • Operate production services end to end, including monitoring, debugging, incident response, and performance optimization
  • Lead and drive incident responses and recovery with your peers. Review and contribute to incident postmortems and hold a high bar for the same

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

  • 5+ years developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems  or experience with storage or hardware architecture
  • Experience with high performance Rust, C++  or JVM-based languages
  • Experience with operating system internals, filesystems, networking, or database storage engines

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

  • Hands-on experience with search and indexing technologies (Elasticsearch, Lucene, or similar) and an understanding of how they work and why
  • Obsessed performance, reliability, scalability and quality
  • Ability to take full ownership of problems and learn whatever is needed to solve them
  • Comfortable moving quickly in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities and tight deadlines
  • Contributions to open-source search or infrastructure projects

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$150,000 - $400,000 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.

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xAI headquarters

Palo Alto, CA

Company size

1,000–2,000 employees

Founded

2023

Total raised

$42,882,486,272

View company profile ↗

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Funding rounds