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Network Development Engineer - Core & Backbone Teams

San Francisco & Palo Alto, CA

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. We operate with a flat organizational structure. All employees are expected to be hands-on and to contribute directly to the company’s mission. Leadership is given to those who show initiative and consistently deliver excellence. Work ethic and strong prioritization skills are important. All engineers and researchers are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role

We are looking for talented Network Development Engineers to join our Core & Backbone Networking teams, bringing deep expertise in building and operating global infrastructure—from hyperscale data centers to a highly connected edge. You’ll help develop world-class network products that have worldwide reach.

Focus

  • Design, scale, and manage datacenter and backbone network infrastructure 

  • Lead architecture reviews and contribute to evolving network design 

  • Deploy and optimize a global multi-vendor, multiprotocol environment

  • Perform qualification and validation of hardware and software

  • Build fault-tolerant systems via proactive monitoring and anomaly detection 

  • Drive incident resolution and participate in a 12x7 on-call rotation

  • Correlate network events, diagnose root causes, and implement long-term fixes

  • Develop operational procedures and resilient remediation strategies

  • Advance automation frameworks to accelerate deployment and reduce risk

Ideal Experience

  • B.S. in network engineering or a related technical discipline, or equivalent experience 

  • Expert-level knowledge of large-scale networking including platforms, topologies, and protocols like BGP, OSPF, or IS-IS

  • Proven track record in solving complex networking challenges and driving cross-team execution

  • Deep understanding of data center networking at scale, including Clos fabrics and BGP-based designs

  • Hands-on experience with backbone, edge, and application-layer networking 

  • Proficiency with Unix/Linux environments and scripting (Python preferred) 

  • Hunger to learn new networking protocols, vendor systems, and languages as needed.

Benefits

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

Annual Salary Range

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

xAI is an equal opportunity employer.

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