Role at a glance
- Salary
- $180K – $440K/yr
- Location
- Palo Alto, California, United States
- Work arrangement
- Hybrid
- Employment
- Full-time
- Experience
- 5+ years of experience as an Infrastructure Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, or similar role
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Role Summary
The Senior Infrastructure Engineer will join the US Government Team to design, build, and operate secure, scalable infrastructure for critical government projects. The role supports AI training and inference workloads across bare metal, classified cloud, and hybrid cloud architectures, with an emphasis on reliability, automation, observability, and federal compliance.
What You'll Do
- Develop and optimize software to provision and manage infrastructure across on-premise, virtual machine, and classified cloud environments.
- Enhance the reliability, performance, and cost-effectiveness of infrastructure supporting large-scale AI and application workloads.
- Collaborate with engineers to design solutions for workload requirements and government-specific compliance standards.
- Implement observability, monitoring, and security practices for the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of critical systems.
- Manage storage infrastructure with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Pulumi, Terraform, or Ansible.
- Drive reliability through incident management, postmortems, and defining SLAs and SLOs.
Generated from the employer's posting. Verify important details before applying.
View full postingQualifications
Active Top Secret (TS) security clearance; 5+ years of infrastructure or site reliability engineering experience; proficiency with storage infrastructure IaC tools such as Pulumi, Terraform, or Ansible; deep understanding of Kubernetes, including CNI, CRI, and CSI; experience with incident management, postmortems, and defining SLAs/SLOs; excellent communication and documentation skills.
Required
- Active Top Secret (TS) security clearance
- 5+ years of experience as an Infrastructure Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, or similar role
- Proficiency with Pulumi, Terraform, or Ansible for storage infrastructure
- Deep understanding of the Kubernetes stack, including CNI, CRI, and CSI
- Experience with incident management, postmortems, and defining SLAs/SLOs
- Excellent communication and documentation skills
Preferred
- Installing and using GPU hardware, including setting up drivers and debugging issues
- Experience with high-traffic web or mobile application workloads
- Optimizing Kubernetes for large-scale deployments in classified or federal settings
- Familiarity with chaos engineering or capacity planning
- Proficiency with Kyverno, ArgoCD, or Go programming
- Certifications in security-related fields, such as CISSP
- Experience in secure federal environments
Original job description
Content provided by the employer
Original job description
Content provided by the employer
SpaceXAI’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:
We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Infrastructure Engineer to join our US Government Team, focused on designing, building, and operating secure, scalable infrastructure for critical government projects. In this role, you will develop and manage training and inference clusters, as well as highly reliable applications, across bare metal, classified cloud, and hybrid cloud architectures. You will leverage your expertise in Kubernetes and GPU hardware to deliver robust, secure systems that support large-scale AI workloads while meeting stringent federal compliance requirements. This role demands a passion for automation, observability, and ensuring system integrity in a fast-paced, high-security environment.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Develop and optimize software to provision and manage SpaceXAI's infrastructure across on-premise, virtual machine, and classified cloud environments, enabling efficient scaling for US government initiatives.
- Enhance the reliability, performance, and cost-effectiveness of infrastructure to support large-scale AI and application workloads in secure, classified settings.
- Collaborate with SpaceXAI engineers to understand workload requirements and design tailored solutions that meet government-specific needs and compliance standards.
- Implement robust observability, monitoring, and security practices to ensure the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of critical systems, adhering to federal protocols.
- Manage storage infrastructure using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools such as Pulumi, Terraform, or Ansible, with a focus on secure data handling.
- Drive system reliability through incident management, postmortems, and the definition of clear SLAs and SLOs, while maintaining security and compliance.
- This is an in-person role based in Palo Alto, CA or Washington, DC, with up to 50% travel required.
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:
- Active Top Secret (TS) security clearance.
- 5+ years of experience as an Infrastructure Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, or similar role, with a focus on building and maintaining reliable, scalable systems, preferably in secure or government environments.
- Proficiency in managing storage infrastructure with IaC tools such as Pulumi, Terraform, or Ansible.
- Deep understanding of the Kubernetes stack, including CNI, CRI, CSI, and related components.
- Demonstrated ability to improve system reliability through incident management, postmortems, and defining SLAs/SLOs.
- Excellent communication and documentation skills, with the ability to handle sensitive information concisely and accurately.
PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:
- Deep familiarity with installing and using GPU hardware, including setting up drivers, debugging issues, and ensuring reliability.
- Experience with high-traffic web or mobile application workloads, including optimizing Kubernetes for large-scale deployments in classified or federal settings.
- Familiarity with chaos engineering, capacity planning, or similar practices for ensuring system resilience in government projects.
- Proficiency with tools such as Kyverno, ArgoCD, or Go programming for infrastructure automation.
- Strong sense of ownership, curiosity, and enthusiasm for tackling complex technical challenges in secure environments.
- Passion for problem-solving and a proactive drive to deliver impactful results while adhering to security protocols.
- Certifications in security-related fields (e.g., CISSP) or experience in secure federal environments.
COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:
$180,000 - $440,000 USD
Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at SpaceXAI, 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.
SpaceXAI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our Recruitment Privacy Notice.
About the company
xAI
Large Enterprise
xAI is a cutting-edge technology company focused on developing advanced artificial intelligence solutions to enhance human capabilities and optimize decision-making processes. Founded by a team of leading experts in AI and machine learning, xAI aims to address complex challenges across various industries, including healthcare, finance, and transportation. By prioritizing ethical AI development, the company is committed to creating innovative tools that empower organizations to harness the full potential of artificial intelligence while ensuring transparency and accountability.
xAI is a cutting-edge technology company focused on developing advanced artificial intelligence solutions to enhance human capabilities and optimize decision-making processes. Founded by a team of leading experts in AI and machine learning, xAI aims to address complex challenges across various industries, including healthcare, finance, and transportation. By prioritizing ethical AI development, the company is committed to creating innovative tools that empower organizations to harness the full potential of artificial intelligence while ensuring transparency and accountability.