AI Engineer & Researcher - HCI / Model Designer

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

As an AI Engineer & Researcher - HCI / Model Designer at xAI, you will play a pivotal role in bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI models and exceptional user experiences. This position sits at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), AI engineering, and model design, where you'll collaborate with cross-functional teams to reimagine how users engage with our AI systems. Your work will focus on elevating the intuitiveness, clarity, and delight of interactions, ensuring that complex AI capabilities are presented in ways that feel natural, insightful, and empowering. With a keen eye for user-centric design, you'll iterate on interfaces, information architectures, and visualization techniques to make our models more accessible and transparent—ultimately helping users unlock the full potential of AI in their daily lives.

Focus

• Enhance User Interactions: Design and implement intuitive interfaces that improve how users query, receive, and iterate on responses from our AI models, prioritizing seamless and engaging experiences.
• Information Organization and Display: Develop strategies for structuring and presenting AI-generated content, ensuring clarity, hierarchy, and relevance to help users quickly grasp key insights without overwhelm.
• Innovate on Agent Transparency: Create novel ways to visualize and convey the internal reasoning processes of AI agents, such as step-by-step thought traces or dynamic feedback loops, to build trust and understanding.
• Prototyping and Iteration: Rapidly prototype new HCI features for AI interfaces, incorporating user feedback and A/B testing to refine how models deliver value in real-world scenarios.
• Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration: Work closely with AI researchers, engineers, and product teams to integrate HCI principles into model training and deployment, fostering innovations that align technical capabilities with human needs.

Ideal Experience

• HCI and UX Expertise: Proven track record in human-computer interaction, user experience design, or related fields, with a portfolio demonstrating high-taste designs for complex systems—ideally in AI or tech products.
• AI/ML Engineering Background: Hands-on experience building or fine-tuning AI models (e.g., LLMs, agents), combined with skills in software engineering (Python, frontend frameworks like React) to prototype and deploy interactive AI features.
• Research Acumen: Experience conducting user studies, A/B experiments, or HCI research, with publications or projects in areas like AI explainability, information visualization, or conversational interfaces.
• Creative Problem-Solving: Demonstrated ability to innovate on information display and agent transparency, such as designing tools for reasoning visualization or adaptive UIs, with a strong aesthetic sense for what "feels right" to users.
• Collaborative Mindset: 3+ years in fast-paced environments, preferably at AI startups or tech companies, where you've balanced technical depth with user empathy to deliver impactful solutions.

Location

• We hire engineers in Palo Alto. Our team usually works from the office 5 days a week but allow work-from-home days when required. Candidates are expected to be located near Palo Alto or open to relocation.

Interview Process

After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to a 15-minute interview (“phone interview”) during which a member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the initial phone interview, you will enter the main process, which consists of four technical interviews:

1. Coding assessment in a language of your choice.
2. 2x post-training technical sessions: These sessions will be testing your ability to formulate, design and solve concrete problems in training data for post-training.
3. Meet the Team: Present your past exceptional work and your vision with xAI to a small audience.

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

xAI is an equal opportunity employer.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Notice