Member of Technical Staff, Interpretability

xAI•Palo Alto, CA

About The Position

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 engineers are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates. About the Role xAI is seeking talented engineers to understand the internals of frontier AI systems. In this role, you will work on interpreting and steering the behavior of frontier AI systems to ensure they are maximally beneficial for society. You will be able to design, scale, and implement your ideas on large scale, production-ready models. Focus Candidates for this role will: Understand how data, activations, and weights affects model behavior, and use these insights to make AI more reliable Develop and scale interpretability techniques for large scale models Create infrastructure to support production and development workflows in interpretability Experience The ideal candidate Has strong software engineering skills Has experience working with LLMs and some experience in interpretability Is creative and enjoys ideas that are both scalable and useful Cares about both short-term impact and long-term insight Is a team player and is willing to pick up new skills to deliver results 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 member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the initial phone interview, you will enter the main process, which consists of 2 technical interviews and 1 project deep-dive interview, followed by a meet and greet with the wider team. Our goal is to finish the main process within one week. Final interviews will be conducted in person. 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.

Requirements

Has strong software engineering skills
Has experience working with LLMs and some experience in interpretability
Is creative and enjoys ideas that are both scalable and useful
Cares about both short-term impact and long-term insight
Is a team player and is willing to pick up new skills to deliver results

Responsibilities

Understand how data, activations, and weights affects model behavior, and use these insights to make AI more reliable
Develop and scale interpretability techniques for large scale models
Create infrastructure to support production and development workflows in interpretability