Member of Technical Staff - International Government

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

This newly formed civilian team focuses on engineering and deploying xAI's AI capabilities (models, APIs, tools, and integrations) for international government agencies, regional/local administrations, and public sector workflows worldwide. We’re building the bridge to responsible, high-impact AI adoption. Team members can expect opportunities for travel and international assignments, with work primarily in the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East. You’ll work closely with product, research, infrastructure, and legal/governance teams to make Grok and future models maximally useful for global civilian missions while upholding safety, transparency, and ethical standards.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize integrations between xAI's frontier models (e.g., Grok family) and international government systems, platforms, and data environments.
• Develop secure, scalable solutions for use cases such as policy analysis, edtech, scientific research support, public health modeling, regulatory workflows, and citizen-facing services across diverse global contexts.
• Collaborate on custom SDKs, APIs, developer tools, and documentation tailored for international government and enterprise developers.
• Partner with international agency stakeholders to understand requirements, prototype solutions, and iterate rapidly based on real-world feedback, including during on-site assignments.
• Contribute to safe deployment practices, including red‑teaming, bias evaluation, output filtering, and explainability features for high‑stakes non‑classified applications in varied regulatory landscapes.
• Fine‑tune and adapt xAI models for specific international government use cases, incorporating custom guardrails and evaluation frameworks to ensure alignment with mission objectives and ethical guidelines.
• Work cross‑functionally to refine xAI products for public sector reliability, compliance (e.g., international standards like GDPR considerations or equivalent), and usability.
• Ship production‑grade code and features with a bias toward speed, simplicity, and measurable impact.

Required Qualifications

• 4+ years of hands‑on software engineering experience building scalable systems, APIs, or AI/ML applications (strong Python proficiency required; other languages a plus).
• Experience fine‑tuning AI models for government or mission‑critical use cases, including building evaluations and ensuring safety and performance.
• Experience deploying complex AI and data systems in sovereign environments, ensuring compliance with international regulations for technology and AI in government or public sector settings.
• Willingness and ability to undertake travel and international assignments to regions such as the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East and potentially more.
• Strong product sensibility: ability to translate ambiguous stakeholder needs into concrete technical solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to write clean, maintainable, high‑performance code under tight timelines.
• Exceptional problem‑solving skills and intellectual curiosity—you thrive on hard, ambiguous challenges.
• Excellent communication skills; you can explain complex technical concepts to non‑technical partners clearly and concisely.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior work on AI safety, governance, red‑teaming, or responsible AI deployment.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), or API orchestration.
• Background in policy‑adjacent technical roles, civic tech, or public‑interest technology with an international focus.
• Contributions to open‑source AI projects or developer tools.

Interview Process

After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to a 15 minute interview (“phone interview”) during which a Hiring Manager on our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the initial phone interview, you will enter the main process, which consists of 2‑3 technical interviews: 2‑3x Practical coding assessment in a language of your choice. Meet and greet with someone from our exec team. Our goal is to finish the main process within one week.

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.