Software Engineer - Network (C++)

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 and should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role

At SpaceXAI, we design, build, and operate Colossus from the ground up. This includes massive GPU clusters, high-speed interconnect fabric, and the software that enables unprecedented scale. Colossus powers frontier AI models with a custom, high-performance datacenter network delivering ultra-low latency and massive bandwidth across hundreds of thousands of GPUs.

As a Software Engineer on the Colossus Networking team, you will develop the core networking software that maximizes the performance and reliability of the datacenter fabric. Your work will directly impact training efficiency, model convergence, and AI system scalability.

Engineers own the full lifecycle of their software — from design and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and iteration based on real-world performance at scale. You will solve challenging problems in distributed systems, high-performance networking, and real-time control of one of the largest AI supercomputers on Earth.

Responsibilities

• Develop routing and traffic-engineering algorithms for the Colossus high-performance datacenter network.
• Develop highly reliable, real-time software designed to run on network switches supporting low-latency, high-bandwidth AI training infrastructure.
• Participate in and lead architecture, design, and code reviews.
• Develop prototypes and run experiments to validate key design decisions at small and full-cluster scale.
• Build tools for software development, deployment, data analysis, visualization, and testing across virtualized environments, hardware-in-the-loop setups, and production clusters.
• Deploy reliable software updates through continuous integration and release systems with rigorous testing and monitoring.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, math, or a related technical discipline; OR 2+ years of professional software development experience in lieu of a degree.
• Strong development experience in C or C++.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Strong professional experience writing high-performance C/C++ in production environments.
• Experience developing, debugging, and deploying software that runs at scale in real-world systems.
• Deep knowledge of networking protocols such as UDP, TCP/IP, and RDMA, along with distributed systems and large-scale datacenter fabrics.
• Background in real-time systems, high-performance computing, low-latency networking, or resource-constrained environments.
• Creative problem-solving ability with exceptional analytical skills and strong engineering fundamentals.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with evolving requirements.
• Experience with security considerations in large-scale distributed systems.

Additional Requirements

• Must be willing to work extended hours and weekends as needed.

Compensation and Benefits

• $180,000 - $440,000 USD salary range.
• Total rewards package includes equity, medical, vision, and dental coverage, 401(k), disability insurance, life insurance, and additional perks.

SpaceXAI is an equal opportunity employer.