Senior AI Engineer, Special Programs — TS-Cleared, High-Impact AI

SpaceX; Washington; On-site; USD 220,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

401(k)

Medical coverage

Paid time off

Job summary

SpaceX is seeking a Sr. AI Engineer for Special Programs to own strategy, execution, and deployment of mission-critical AI solutions for U.S. federal agencies. You will collaborate with product, research, and governance teams to deliver high-stakes projects while upholding safety and ethical standards.

The role requires building scalable AI-powered software, evaluating models, and ensuring secure, auditable deployments in government contexts. Expect travel and extended hours per mission needs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, computer engineering, physics, or data science.
• 5+ years of hands-on software engineering experience building scalable systems, APIs, or AI/ML applications.
• Active Top-Secret or Top-Secret SCI.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize integrations between AI frontier models and government systems, platforms, and data environments.
• Identify pain points, scoping product specifications, and designing and building AI-powered software for government or enterprise use cases.
• Benchmark models and develop evaluation frameworks to assess performance and address weaknesses, ensuring compliance with customer standards.
• Enhancing model performance through system prompt tuning or fine-tuning, with an eye toward secure and scalable deployment.
• Analyze request logs, prompt data, or system outputs to ensure reliability and audibility.
• Build internal tooling to streamline workflows and automate repetitive tasks in secure environments.
• Partner with agency stakeholders to understand requirements, prototype solutions, and iterate rapidly based on real-world feedback.
• Ship production-grade code and features with a bias toward speed, simplicity, and measurable impact.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

APIs

Security

Cloud

Documentation

Education

BS in CS/Math/CE/Physics/Data Science

Tools

Terraform

Pulumi

Grok

Job description

SpaceX is seeking a Sr. AI Engineer for Special Programs to own strategy, execution, and deployment of mission-critical AI solutions for U.S. federal agencies. You will collaborate with product, research, and governance teams to deliver high-stakes projects while upholding safety and ethical standards.

The role requires building scalable AI-powered software, evaluating models, and ensuring secure, auditable deployments in government contexts. Expect travel and extended hours per mission needs.