# Backend Engineer - API
**Company:** [xAI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/xai)
**Location:** Palo Alto, CA
**Salary:** $180K-$440K
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Rust, C++, Distributed Systems, Postgres, ClickHouse, MongoDB, Kubernetes, Docker, gRPC, vLLM
**Posted:** 2026-06-10
> Build and own the xAI API and high-throughput inference infrastructure serving models globally with low latency and high availability. Requires expert Rust or C++ skills and experience with scalable distributed systems.
## Job Description
## Responsibilities
- Build the xAI API that serves our models to developers worldwide
- Own the end-to-end system responsible for high-throughput inference, handling billions of tokens per minute with low latency and high availability, including model serving infrastructure, request routing, SDK development, rate limiting, observability, and efficient scaling

## Requirements
- Expert knowledge of either Rust or C++
- Experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining reliable and horizontally scalable distributed systems
- Knowledge of service observability and reliability best practices
- Experience in operating commonly used databases such as PostgreSQL, Clickhouse, and MongoDB

## Preferred Skills
- Experience with LLM inference engines and serving frameworks (e.g., SGLang, TensorRT, vLLM)
- Experience designing or building with agent SDKs and agent orchestration frameworks
- Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and containerized applications
- Expert knowledge of gRPC (unary, response streaming, bi-directional streaming, REST mapping)

## Compensation and Benefits
- $180,000 - $440,000 USD base salary
- Equity
- Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage
- Access to a 401(k) retirement plan
- Short & long-term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Various other discounts and perks
**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/backend-engineer-api-at-xai-2b301486-c7c5-41df-9669-96fb924ff4c8
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/backend-engineer-api-at-xai-2b301486-c7c5-41df-9669-96fb924ff4c8