Sr. Software Engineer

About the role

SpaceX is seeking a Sr. Software Engineer to join the Platform Team, focusing on AI infrastructure. This role involves building secure and scalable AI platforms and proxy systems that empower all SpaceX teams. You will be a key technical leader, accelerating development and production across the company by enabling trustworthy AI solutions. The position requires deep collaboration with cross-functional partners to define platform direction and ensure robust delivery. You will translate complex requirements into reliable software architectures that serve demanding operational needs. This role is critical for establishing the foundational systems that allow AI to be used safely at scale across the organization. You will own the full lifecycle of platform components from initial design through long term maintenance.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Lead the design, architecture, and implementation of secure, scalable AI platforms and proxy systems for company-wide use.
• Own complex platform initiatives from strategy through deployment and ongoing evolution.
• Drive the integration of new AI models, expand compute resources, and optimize proxy systems for performance, security, logging, and control.
• Promote AI adoption across SpaceX by mentoring engineers, showcasing value, and providing direct support.
• Identify high-value opportunities and deliver solutions that convert engineering ideas into tested software, deployed applications, and trained models.
• Develop and scale tools that reduce business risk, such as AI-powered code review and PR automation.
• Define best practices for efficient and secure applied AI, translating engineering expertise into automation and reliable data systems.
• Collaborate with and influence cross-functional teams including ML researchers, security, and operations.
• Implement observability and monitoring strategies to ensure platform reliability and performance under load.
• Refine deployment pipelines to improve velocity, stability, and rollback capabilities for platform services.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and assess their applicability and integration into existing infrastructure.
• Partner with infrastructure teams to align platform capabilities with hardware and network strategies.
• Facilitate knowledge transfer and create documentation that supports long term platform sustainability.
• Support incident response and troubleshooting efforts to maintain high availability for critical platform services.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or another engineering discipline with 5 or more years of professional experience building production software; OR 7 or more years of professional experience building production software without a degree.
• Experience developing and operating production platforms, specifically in AI/ML infrastructure, developer platforms, or large-scale backend systems.
• Demonstrated ability to design and implement systems that are secure, scalable, and highly available.
• Strong understanding of software development practices, including testing, code review, and version control.
• Experience working in fast paced, mission critical environments where requirements evolve quickly.
• Proven track record of delivering complex software projects on schedule and meeting operational standards.
• Comfort with debugging difficult issues in distributed systems and production environments.
• Willingness to adhere to U.S. Government export compliance rules as detailed in the practical notes.

Nice to have

• Demonstrated success building and scaling internal AI gateways, secure proxy systems, or MLOps platforms in a fast-paced environment.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, security architecture, and integrations across multiple cloud and frontier model providers.
• Strong background in model onboarding, compute orchestration, observability, and infrastructure for high-volume AI usage.
• Proven ability to enable and mentor others through tools, documentation, training, and direct partnership.
• Entrepreneurial track record of identifying opportunities and delivering significant impact.
• Proficiency in Python and strong experience with additional languages such as Go, Java, TypeScript, or Rust.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, and building highly reliable distributed systems.

Practical notes

To comply with U.S. Government export regulations, applicants must be a U.S. citizen, national, lawful permanent resident (green card holder), Refugee, or Asylee, or be eligible to obtain required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State.