Software Engineer - Internal Tools

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

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical coverage

Vision coverage

Dental coverage

401(k) retirement plan

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Job summary

Dormont Manufacturing Co located in Palo Alto, California, is seeking a backend engineer for its Tooling team. The ideal candidate will design, develop, and maintain backend systems that empower teams to create and deploy AI applications effectively.

This role offers a competitive annual salary range of $180,000 - $440,000, alongside comprehensive benefits including medical, dental, 401(k), and various perks. If you're passionate about engineering excellence and innovation in AI, we'd love to hear from you.

Qualifications

• Experience building high-performance backend systems in dynamic environments.
• Expertise in designing scalable distributed systems and APIs with Rust or C++.
• Experience optimizing data pipelines for machine learning workloads.

Responsibilities

• Design and build robust, scalable backend systems.
• Develop APIs that handle high-throughput data processing.
• Create secure, reliable pipelines for innovative workflows.
• Optimize infrastructure to utilize cutting-edge GPU resources.

Skills

High-performance backend systems

Scalable distributed systems

APIs design

Data pipeline optimization

Collaboration with frontend technologies

Job description

About xAI

xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. Our team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity. 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. Work ethic and strong prioritization skills are important. All employees are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role

The xAI Tooling team (Starfleet) is looking for a backend engineer who will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining robust, scalable backend systems that empower our researchers, engineers, and product teams to build, experiment with, and deploy cutting‑edge AI models and applications more effectively. In this role, you will own high‑impact tooling projects including internal APIs, data pipelines, orchestration layers, and tooling platforms that streamline workflows for training, inference, evaluation, and deployment. If you’re excited to create the foundational tools that make building the world’s most powerful AI systems faster and more efficient, this role offers the chance to have outsized impact at the frontier of AI development.

Responsibilities

• Design and build robust, scalable backend systems to power our AI‑driven tools and platforms.
• Develop APIs and distributed systems that handle high‑throughput data processing for model training and evaluation.
• Create secure, reliable pipelines to support innovative human data generation and agentic workflows.
• Optimize infrastructure to leverage cutting‑edge GPU resources for maximum performance.
• Innovate new approaches that bring us closer to our goal: to develop AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge.

Required Qualifications

• Experience building high‑performance backend systems in dynamic, fast‑paced environments - as a tech lead, former founder, etc.
• Expertise in designing scalable distributed systems and APIs with a compiled language like Rust or C++.
• Experience optimizing data pipelines for machine learning workloads or real‑time applications.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with frontend technologies (e.g., TypeScript, React) to collaborate seamlessly with cross‑functional teams.

Annual Salary Range

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

Benefits

Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at xAI, 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.

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