Software Engineer, Ads Product

at xAI

📍 Palo Alto, United States

USD 150,000-350,000 per year

MIDDLE

✅ On-site

Used Tools & Technologies

Go LLM

Required Skills & Competences
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

Python @ 3 Scala @ 3 Java @ 3 Distributed Systems @ 6 Machine Learning @ 3 gRPC @ 3 React @ 3 Rust @ 3 Experimentation @ 3 AI @ 3 Data Pipelines @ 6

Details

xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. The team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. The organization expects hands-on contributors, clear communicators, and people who take initiative and ownership.

This role sits on X Ads, a high-leverage product area that operates at massive scale and directly affects business revenue. The Ads Platform is being rebuilt with modern infrastructure and AI at the center. This position is a strong fit for early-career engineers who learn quickly, ship fast, and want to work on backend systems, distributed systems, data pipelines, product engineering, and AI-powered features.

Responsibilities

Build and ship product features across the X Ads Platform.
Work on systems related to ad delivery, targeting, optimization, measurement, and advertiser experience.
Use xAI’s infrastructure and AI capabilities to improve the performance and quality of advertising products.
Contribute to distributed systems that need to be reliable, fast, and scalable.
Collaborate closely with engineers, product leads, and cross-functional partners to turn ideas into working products.
Learn quickly, take ownership, and operate in a fast-moving environment where high-quality execution matters.
Debug, maintain, and improve production systems that serve real users and drive significant business impact.

Requirements

Basic qualifications

Strong software engineering fundamentals.
Ability to write clean, maintainable code and learn new codebases quickly.
Strong problem-solving skills and comfort working through ambiguity.
Experience building software through internships, projects, research, open-source work, startups, or full-time roles.
Interest in backend systems, distributed systems, data pipelines, product engineering, or AI applications.
A bias toward action: you like shipping, learning from real users, and improving quickly.
Strong ownership mindset and willingness to take responsibility for meaningful parts of the product.
Excitement about building high-quality product experiences for advertisers and users.

Preferred skills and experience

Experience with ads, recommendations, search, ranking, marketplaces, payments, analytics, or growth systems.
Experience working with large-scale backend systems or data processing pipelines.
Experience with React, Golang, Python, Rust, gRPC, Java, or Scala.
Experience with machine learning, LLMs, experimentation, ranking, or optimization systems.
Prior startup, research, internship, or high-impact project experience.

You do not need to know every technology listed. The company emphasizes strong fundamentals, learning speed, and the ability to ship.

Benefits

Base salary range: $150,000 - $350,000 USD.
Equity and comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage.
Access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and other discounts and perks.

Recruitment privacy notice: https://x.ai/legal/recruitment-privacy-notice