AI Engineer & Researcher, xAI
Post-Training
$180-440k
Building artificial intelligence
Open for applications
Building artificial intelligence
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$180-440k
1001+ employees
Company mission
To build AI systems that can help humanity understand the world better.
Role
Who you are
- Expert in ML and fine-tuning large language models
- Track record in leading research that significantly impacts AI advancement
- Experience in data-driven large language model behavior improvements
- Experience in advanced reinforcement learning or inference-time search techniques
- Experience in developing benchmarks or large-scale distributed machine learning systems
- Experience in model optimizations under complex setups (e.g., multi-modality, multi-context, multi-agent, long-horizon tasks, diverse user preference/feedback)
- This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity
- 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
What the job involves
- 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
- The post-training team at xAI transforms powerful pre-trained models to become steerable, versatile, and capable of understanding and addressing real-world challenges
- As a post-training researcher/engineer, you will enhance the model's instruction-following capability and general usefulness to fulfill our mission – developing AI systems that can accurately understand the universe, create new knowledge, and improve themselves through interactions
- Creating and driving research agenda to advance model quality
- Improving data mixtures by building data collection pipelines and developing data generation techniques
- Creating generalizable reward models and developing novel reinforcement learning algorithms
- Designing and implementing robust model evaluations
- Designing and implementing large-scale model training frameworks
- Collaborating with pre-training, reasoning, data, multimodal, applied, product efforts to push the frontiers of model capability
Application process
- 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:
- Coding assessment in a language of your choice
- Systems design: Translate high-level requirements into detailed plans for data collection, evaluation metrics, and specific fine-tuning experiments
- Systems hands-on: Demonstrate practical skills in a live problem-solving session
- Project deep-dive: Present your past exceptional work and your vision with xAI to a small audience
- Meet and greet with the wider team
- Our goal is to finish the main process within one week
- 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 3 rounds)
Dec 2024
$6bn
SERIES C
May 2024
$6bn
SERIES B
Total funding: $12.1bn
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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