Sr. Software Engineer, Search Infrastructure

X.ai; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 400,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

401(k)

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Employee discounts

Job summary

SpaceXSI is seeking a Sr. Software Engineer, Search Infrastructure, to design and scale the core search stack powering subscriptions and monetized products. You will tackle real-time indexing, low-latency serving, and data pipelines for millions of transactions.

You’ll own internals, optimize performance, and drive reliability while collaborating across teams to deliver high-impact tools for creators and users alike.

Qualifications

• 5+ years developing large-scale infrastructure or distributed systems.
• Experience with high-performance Rust, C++ or JVM-based languages.
• Strong understanding of OS internals, filesystems, networking or storage engines.

Responsibilities

• Design and build large scale search infrastructure with real-time indexing and data pipelines.
• Deep-dive into index, query execution and relevance, influencing core search direction.
• Operate production services end-to-end: monitoring, debugging, incident response, performance optimization.
• Lead incident responses and postmortems with a high bar for quality.

Skills

Experience building large-scale infra

Rust / C++ / JVM

OS internals & filesystems

Tools

Elasticsearch

Lucene

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.

SR. SOFTWARE ENGINEER, SEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE

As a senior backend engineer, you’ll design and build scalable, high-performance systems that power subscriptions infrastructure, new monetized products, user growth, and creator monetization. You’ll work on mission-critical infrastructure that processes millions of transactions, optimizes user acquisition and retention, and enables creators to earn a living through their content. This is a unique opportunity to make a large-scale revenue impact while creating products that users and businesses love.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design and build large scale search infrastructure (real-time indexing, serving, and data pipelines) that handles massive write and query loads with strict latency and reliability requirements
• Go deep into search internals (indexing, query execution, and relevance) and help shape the technical direction of the core search infrastructure
• Operate production services end to end, including monitoring, debugging, incident response, and performance optimization
• Lead and drive incident responses and recovery with your peers. Review and contribute to incident postmortems and hold a high bar for the same

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• 5+ years developing large-scale infrastructure, distributed systems or experience with storage or hardware architecture
• Experience with high performance Rust, C++ or JVM-based languages
• Experience with operating system internals, filesystems, networking, or database storage engines

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Hands-on experience with search and indexing technologies (Elasticsearch, Lucene, or similar) and an understanding of how they work and why
• Obsessed performance, reliability, scalability and quality
• Ability to take full ownership of problems and learn whatever is needed to solve them
• Comfortable moving quickly in a fast-paced environment with shifting priorities and tight deadlines
• Contributions to open-source search or infrastructure projects

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$150,000 - $400,000 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.

• equity
• comprehensive medical
• vision
• dental coverage
• access to a 401(k) retirement plan
• short & long-term disability insurance
• life insurance
• various other discounts and perks

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