AI Researcher & Engineer, xAI
Multimodal, Real-time Audio and Video
$180-440k
5 days a week in office (Palo Alto, CA)
Building artificial intelligence
Be an early applicant
Building artificial intelligence
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$180-440k
5 days a week in office (Palo Alto, CA)
1001+ employees
Company mission
To build AI systems that can help humanity understand the world better.
Role
Who you are
- Ideal candidates thrive at the intersection of cutting-edge research and engineering
- A proven track record of leading research or engineering efforts that have significantly enhanced neural network capabilities and performance
- Hands-on experience building and deploying large-scale distributed machine learning systems and backend services
- Expertise in reinforcement learning, agentic models, or real-world multimodal AI applications
- Strong engineering skills combined with the ability and enthusiasm to rapidly navigate and master complex, unfamiliar codebases
- Demonstrated excellence in systematic experiment design, model debugging, performance analysis, and iterative improvements
- A pragmatic, execution-oriented approach: you proactively solve problems and prioritize getting things done efficiently
What the job involves
- The reasoning team at xAI creates magical AI experiences beyond text, enabling the understanding and generation of content across various modalities, including image, video, and audio
- Our team is pushing the frontier of multimodal intelligence through Grok Voice, our advanced multimodal AI assistant that is able to listen, see, and respond to you in real time
- We actively work to develop novel audio and video understanding capabilities that solve user problems in both the physical and digital worlds
- As a Researcher & Engineer on the Reasoning team specializing in real-time audio and video, you'll lead the advancement of multimodal capabilities across data, modeling, serving infrastructure, and product integration
- Collaborating closely with pre-training, post-training, and product teams, you'll drive innovations that expand the boundaries of model performance and elevate end-to-end user experiences
- Research, design, and implement algorithms to enhance audio and video understanding and generation, whether through developing new models, systems, or tools
- Collaborate closely with product and engineering teams to carry multimodal capabilities from initial concept through production deployment, proactively monitoring and addressing issues along the way
- Improve data quality by curating robust datasets, developing data filtering and generation techniques, building scalable data pipelines, and analyzing user interactions to inform product improvements
- Create evaluation frameworks, internal benchmarks, and metrics to systematically measure and improve real-world model performance, proactively identifying and resolving user-facing challenges
- Manage the complete experimental lifecycle: from designing experiments and training models to deployment and iterative refinement based on feedback and data
Application 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:
- One-on-one research discussion & coding interviews (three meetings total)
- Project deep-dive: Present your past exceptional work and your vision with xAI to a small audience
- Every application is reviewed by a member of our technical team
- All interviews will be conducted via Google Meet
Our take
xAI is Elon Musk's venture into the world of artificial intelligence, and like all things Musk, it's going big. Its setting out to build AI that helps humanity understand the universe and its starting with Grok, its conversational AI chatbot already integrated into X (formerly Twitter). With access to real-time data and a powerful ecosystem of Musk-led companies, xAI is certainly pushing towards artificial general intelligence at serious scale.
Like all bold ventures, xAI has faced its share of controversy, from questions about regulation to the overlap across Musk's businesses. But fans are still seeing the bigger picture: an interconnected tech ecosystem where AI, social media, and space exploration feed into one another.
Recently, the company made headlines with its massive "Colossus" supercomputer project, powered by tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs. While the data center's temporary power setup has faced environmental scrutiny, the scale of ambition is certainly undeniable. From launching tap-to-pay features on X to building one of the most powerful AI training systems on Earth, xAI is moving fast.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Jul 2025
$5bn
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Dec 2024
$6bn
SERIES C
Total funding: $17.1bn
Company benefits
- Health and wellness: Comprehensive health insurance including medical, dental, vision, and disability coverage
- Life and family: Life and AD&D insurance and fertility benefits to ensure our team’s well-being and peace of mind
- Flexible vacation: We work hard but avoid burn out. Take time off when you need it
- Visa sponsorship: We support international talent with visa sponsorship to join our team
- 401(k) plan: Retirement savings plan to secure your financial future
Company HQ
Downtown, Burlingame, CA
Leadership
Elon Musk
(Founder)Founder, Chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX. CEO and Product Architect of Tesla. Chairman and CTO of X Corp, founder of the Boring Company, co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI, and president of the Musk Foundation.
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