---
title: 'OT Network Engineer (Physical Infrastructure) at xAI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ot-network-engineer-physical-infrastructure-xai-southaven-cv17szgyyymp'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-19'
---

# OT Network Engineer (Physical Infrastructure) at xAI

- **Company:** xAI
- **Location:** Southaven, MS / Memphis, TN
- **Posted:** 2026-09-02
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-19
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xai/jobs/5229355007

## 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.

## ABOUT THE ROLE:

SpaceXSI is looking for an exceptional network engineer with experience in mission-critical or large-scale production environments to support our supercomputer infrastructure. As a member of the Physical Infrastructure Networking team, you will provide operational and designs services for physical infrastructure networks. The ideal candidate thrives in intense, high flux environments, brings a strong sense of urgency balanced with operational excellence, communicates effectively, and demonstrates high levels of technical acumen.

## RESPONSIBILITIES:

- Design and implement highly available networks, carefully balancing various routing and redundancy technologies depending on unique requirements between production and launch.
- Design and maintain mission data center and site networks in accordance with company network standards. Collaborating with adjacent infrastructure and enterprise teams.
- Evaluate, procure, and deploy network hardware including switches, firewalls, multiplexing and SDWAN appliances.
- Contribute to ever maturing network automation tooling; implementing configuration analysis, linting, and scalability into the deployment framework.
- Plan and coordinate network outage windows with stakeholders to perform software updates, hardware refreshes, and general network maintenance (sometimes on weekends and evenings).
- Troubleshoot and resolve network-related issues, publishing root cause analysis (RCA) documentation and hosting retrospective data reviews.
- Provide direct networking support during launch and test campaigns and be on-call or provide real-time support as networking responsible engineer during operations.
- Proactively tailors network monitoring to provide ever more valuable operational telemetry with emphasis on issue detection prior to operational impact.
- Continuously create and update network documentation, including architecture overviews, design drawings, and operational procedures.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to proactively identify and resolve potential technical issues with network designs, especially in regards to systemic, cascading failure modes, and superficial redundancy.
- Perform job walks with customers, vendors, and contractors to gather network requirements and create implementation plans.
- Ensure networks are configured and maintained in compliance with industry and cybersecurity standards (e.g., ITAR, ISO, NIST), with particular attention to controls network segmentation and security.
- Design and validate resilient, scalable multi-site OT network topologies optimized for critical facilities.
- Audit, and enforce zero-trust firewalls to decouple facility infrastructure from the corporate DMZ.
- Author comprehensive system/network architecture drawings, IP/VLAN schemes, and data flow diagrams.
- Support on-site system deployment, physical network cutovers, and new site commissioning.

## BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, or other STEM discipline and 3+ years of professional network engineering experience;
- OR 5+ years of professional network engineering experience in lieu of a degree.
- 2+ years of hands-on experience in Operational Technology (OT) networking, critical facility infrastructure, industrial automation, or controls engineering.
- Extensive hands-on experience designing, deploying, supporting, and troubleshooting Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks in latency sensitive and/or industrial environments.
- Functional experience with multiple network vendors either in production or lab environments.
- Experience with GitOps and Infrastructure as Code Frameworks, both as user and contributor.

## PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

- Strong understanding of the OSI model and network standards.
- Hands-on experience with Cisco, Arista, and Juniper data center class switches.
- Experience with Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) and fiber optics infrastructure.
- Extensive knowledge of common enterprise and media protocols.
- Experience with switch port security features, network segmentation, QoS, multicast, and redundancy protocols.
- Familiarity with network monitoring tools and layer 1 testing tools.
- Proficiency in scripting (Bash/PowerShell/Python) and automation frameworks (Terraform, Ansible, etc.).
- Linux and Windows system administration experience professionally or from labs.
- Industry standard certifications such as CCNA or CCNP.
- Experience supporting real-time systems, industrial control networks, or operational technology (OT) environments in aerospace, defense, energy, oil & gas, or similar high-reliability industries.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to communicate with internal/external customers, vendors, and management in both formal and informal situations.

## ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

- Ability to work in tight quarters; physical dexterity is necessary to perform job functions.
- Availability for extended hours and/or weekends as the schedule varies depending on site operational needs; flexibility is required.
- Ability to provide 24x7 on-call support in emergency situations and participate in an after-hours on-call rotation.
- Willingness to travel (up to 20%, including flying to other sites worldwide) and potential time at sea supporting marine systems.
- Ability to lift 30 lbs.
- Ability to work at heights.
- Ability to drive (active valid driver’s license).

SpaceXSI is an equal opportunity employer. For details on data processing, view our [Recruitment Privacy Notice](https://x.ai/legal/recruitment-privacy-notice).

## About xAI

## Company Overview
- **One‑liner**: xAI builds artificial intelligence systems to accelerate human scientific discovery and “understand the universe,” with products spanning frontier reasoning models, real‑time voice, and generative media.
- **Entity Type**: Private (last funding round: Series E, January 2026; acquired by SpaceX in February 2026)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, USA (additional offices in Seattle, WA; Memphis, TN; London, UK)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Elon Musk

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Artificial Intelligence (AI research, large language models, voice AI, generative media)
- Target customers: B2B (developers via API), B2C (consumers via Grok on 𝕏, SuperGrok subscriptions), Enterprise & Government (xAI for Government)
- Mission: “To understand the universe” – building AI that extends what humanity can know and do.

## Products & Services
- **Grok (base models)** : A conversational AI assistant modeled after *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*, available on the 𝕏 platform and via API.
- **Grok 4 / Grok 4 Heavy**: The most intelligent reasoning models, featuring native tool use and real‑time search integration (SuperGrok and Premium+ tiers).
- **Grok Voice Agent API / Voice Agent Builder**: Create custom voice agents in under two minutes (no‑code) – includes speech‑to‑text, text‑to‑speech, custom voice cloning, and multilingual support.
- **Grok Imagine API**: State‑of‑the‑art video generation API (quality, cost, latency).
- **Grok‑1.5 / Grok‑2 / Grok‑2 mini**: Earlier model releases with improved reasoning and 128K context length.
- **PromptIDE**: An integrated development environment for prompt engineering and interpretability research.
- **xAI for Government**: A suite of frontier AI products tailored for U.S. government customers.
- **Colossus Supercomputer**: 200,000‑GPU cluster built in 122 days, used for training xAI models; now also leased to Anthropic (Colossus 1 agreement).

All products are delivered as SaaS, API, and model weights (open‑source release of Grok‑1).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Funding**: 
  - Series B (May 2024): $6 B 
  - Series C (Dec 2024): $6 B (led by A16Z, BlackRock, Fidelity, Kingdom Holdings, Lightspeed, MGX, Morgan Stanley, OIA, QIA, Sequoia, Valor, Vy Capital, others)
  - Series E (Jan 2026): $20 B
  - Acquisition by SpaceX announced Feb 2, 2026 (terms not disclosed).
- **Key Metric**: Total disclosed funding ~$32 B; annual revenue not publicly available.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: A16Z, BlackRock, Fidelity, Sequoia Capital, Morgan Stanley, Kingdom Holdings, Lightspeed, MGX, Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Anthropic (Colossus deal), U.S. Department of War (selected Dec 2025).
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Rapid scaling from founding to 200K‑GPU cluster in 122 days.
  - Over 214 open roles listed on Greenhouse as of mid‑2026.
  - #1 on Big Bench Audio (Grok 4 audio performance).
  - Expanded into voice agents, video generation, and government verticals within 3 years.
  - Acquisition by SpaceX signals deep integration with space‑tech resources.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Compute infrastructure**: Colossus supercomputer – one of the largest GPU clusters in existence, enabling faster training and larger models.
- **Model performance**: Grok 4 claims “most intelligent model in the world” with top benchmarks (Big Bench Audio #1).
- **Vertical integration**: Tight coupling with 𝕏 platform for data, distribution, and real‑time world knowledge.
- **Speed of execution**: “Move quickly and fix things” culture; built Colossus in 122 days.
- **Government contracts**: Early access to public‑sector AI markets (U.S. Department of War).
- **Talent density**: Small, focused team of researchers and engineers; in‑person work accelerates iteration.

## Strategic Focus
- **Continue advancing frontier reasoning** (Grok 4 Heavy, next‑gen models).
- **Expand voice and multimodal APIs** for developers (Voice Agent Builder, Custom Voices Library).
- **Deepen government / defense partnerships** (xAI for Government, Department of War).
- **Scale infrastructure** post‑acquisition via SpaceX resources.
- **Remain “open” where strategic** (open‑source release of Grok‑1 weights).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “Ambitious goals, fast execution” – rejects consensus in favor of first‑principles reasoning. In‑person work prioritized (Palo Alto, Seattle, Memphis, London).
- **Benefits**: 
  - Competitive cash + equity compensation.
  - Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, disability, life insurance.
  - 401(k) plan, fertility benefits, flexible vacation.
  - Visa sponsorship offered.
- **Engineering culture**: No recruiters for assessments – applications reviewed directly by technical team. Interview process: application → screening → technical interviews → offer.
- **Mission‑driven**: Opportunity to work on frontier AI models that aim to “advance humanity.”
- **Perks**: In‑person collaboration, fast‑paced environment, ownership of meaningful projects.

## Sources
1. [x.ai/company](https://x.ai/company)
2. [x.ai/careers](https://x.ai/careers)
3. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/xai](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xai)
4. [x.ai/news](https://x.ai/news)
5. [x.ai/careers/open-roles](https://x.ai/careers/open-roles)

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