Software Engineer, Data Platform

SpaceX Super Intelligence; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 440,000; Full time

Job summary

SpaceXSI's Data Platform team designs and operates the infrastructure for large-scale data transport and processing across the company, including Kafka, HDFS, Spark, Flink, and Trino, enabling real-time ML pipelines and analytics at petabyte scale.

As a software engineer on this team, you will build and run distributed systems powering data movement and compute, owning infrastructure components that handle trillions of events daily and ensuring reliability under heavy load.

Qualifications

• Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms.
• Proficiency in Rust, Go, Scala or similar systems languages.
• Hands-on experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop in production.
• Strong debugging, profiling, and performance optimization skills.
• Track record of shipping and maintaining critical infrastructure.
• Comfortable working in fast-moving, high-stakes environments with minimal guardrails.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems.
• Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads.
• Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines.
• Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale.
• Debug and optimize distributed systems, with a focus on reliability and performance under load.
• Collaborate with ML, product, and infrastructure teams to unblock critical data workflows.

Skills

Distributed systems

Stream processing

Kafka

Flink

Spark

Rust/Go/Scala

Tools

Hadoop

Trino

Job description

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.

SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.

SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

The Data Platform team builds and operates the infrastructure responsible for all large-scale data transport and processing across the company. We own and manage core systems including Apache Kafka, HDFS, Spark, Flink, and Trino, enabling real-time ML pipelines, feed ranking, experimentation, analytics, and observability at petabyte scale. Our team deals with latency-critical workloads, high-throughput streaming, and distributed compute systems that require fault tolerance, performance, and absolute reliability.

As a software engineer on the Data Platform team, you will design, build, and operate the distributed systems powering SpaceXSI's data movement and compute. You will take ownership of infrastructure components that process trillions of events daily, driving the scalability, performance, and reliability of the systems that power product and ML workloads across the company.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems.
• Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads.
• Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines.
• Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale.
• Debug and optimize distributed systems, with a focus on reliability and performance under load.
• Collaborate with ML, product, and infrastructure teams to unblock critical data workflows.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms.
• Proficiency in Rust, Go, Scala or similar systems languages.
• Hands-on experience with Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop*in production.
• Strong debugging, profiling, and performance optimization skills.
• Track record of shipping and maintaining critical infrastructure.
• Comfortable working in fast-moving, high-stakes environments with minimal guardrails.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXSI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.

SpaceXSI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our Recruitment Privacy Notice.