Kairos
Back to jobs

Member of Technical Staff - Data Platform

On-site
xAIPalo Alto, CA, US11 months agoWebsite
Fresh
Product

Compensation

Salary undisclosed
Apply
Share

Description

ABOUT THE ROLE:

The Data Platform team builds and operates the infrastructure responsible for all large-scale data transport and processing across the company. We own and manage core systems including Apache Kafka, HDFS, Spark, Flink, and Trino, enabling real-time ML pipelines, feed ranking, experimentation, analytics, and observability at petabyte scale. Our team deals with latency-critical workloads, high-throughput streaming, and distributed compute systems that require fault tolerance, performance, and absolute reliability.

As a software engineer on the Data Platform team, you will design, build, and operate the distributed systems powering X’s data movement and compute. You will take ownership of infrastructure components that process trillions of events daily, driving the scalability, performance, and reliability of the systems that power product and ML workloads across the company.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Design and implement high-throughput, low-latency data ingestion and transport systems.
  • Scale and optimize multi-tenant Kafka infrastructure supporting real-time workloads.
  • Extend and tune Spark, Flink, and Trino for demanding production pipelines.
  • Build interfaces, APIs, and pipelines enabling teams to query, process, and move data at petabyte scale.
  • Debug and optimize distributed systems, with a focus on reliability and performance under load.
  • Collaborate with ML, product, and infrastructure teams to unblock critical data workflows.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

  • Proven expertise in distributed systems, stream processing, or large-scale data platforms.
  • Proficiency in  Rust, Go, Scala  or similar systems languages.
  • Hands-on experience with  Kafka, Flink, Spark, Trino, or Hadoop*in production.
  • Strong debugging, profiling, and performance optimization skills.
  • Track record of shipping and maintaining critical infrastructure.
  • Comfortable working in fast-moving, high-stakes environments with minimal guardrails.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS:

$180,000 - $440,000 USD

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

Stack

ScalaDistributed SystemsSparkKafkaMachine LearningRust
Posted
Jul 29, 2025
Last seen
Jun 25, 2026
First seen
Jun 25, 2026
Status
active
Member of Technical Staff - Data Platform at xAI | Kairos