Mission Manager - Government

About xAI

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

Mission Managers collaborate directly with U.S. and allied government customers to strategize and execute mission‑critical AI solutions. xAI is expanding its government footprint to bring frontier AI (Grok family models, APIs, agentic tools) to federal civilian agencies, state/local governments, and public sector partners. You’ll support new business proposals from requirements validation through solution design, prototyping, development, and rollout. As part of a team of applied engineers, AI researchers, and fellow mission managers, you’ll connect disparate data points into a clear map of customer challenges—and align them with xAI products or collaborate with engineers to build new ones.

Top candidates bring a technical foundation, analytical mindset, and strong problem‑solving curiosity. They exhibit user empathy and a hands‑on approach to deliver results for customers. In this role, you’ll tackle problems demanding curiosity, analytical thinking, product intuition, and deep user empathy to empower customers.

Leading problem discovery and product scoping for key customers, often on‑site.

Meeting customers on‑site to deploy xAI models/products in their environments or integrate their software with xAI’s cloud, alongside engineers.

Identifying pain points, scoping specs, and building LLM‑powered software for government use cases.

Optimizing model performance via prompt tuning or fine‑tuning for secure, scalable deployment, and working with SMEs at the customer to improve this process.

Analyzing logs, prompts, or outputs to ensure system reliability and effectiveness.

• Proven experience partnering with U.S. federal civilian agencies, state/local governments, or public sector organizations on technology, data, or AI initiatives.
• Strong ability to bridge mission/business needs with technical solutions—turning vague problems into scoped, actionable engineering requirements.
• Background in software engineering, machine learning, data science, or related fields (e.g., Computer Science, Physics, Public Policy with technical depth).
• Hands‑on familiarity with AI/LLMs (prompt engineering, fine‑tuning, evaluation, or deployment) or building/scaling software for enterprise/government use.
• Excellent communication: explain complex AI concepts clearly to non‑technical stakeholders (e.g., policymakers, domain experts) while collaborating effectively with engineers.
• Comfort navigating bureaucratic environments, building relationships, and driving projects to measurable outcomes.
• Programming/scripting proficiency (e.g., Python, SQL) for prototyping, data analysis, debugging, or lightweight tooling.

• Prior work in civic tech, public‑interest technology, or federal programs.
• Experience with responsible AI practices (bias evaluation, explainability, red‑team‑ing) in regulated contexts.
• Familiarity with federal civilian standards (e.g., FedRAMP considerations, accessibility, privacy frameworks like NIST for non‑classified systems).
• Skills in creating user guides, training materials, or demos for diverse audiences.

• Experience with Juniper, Cisco, and Arista hardware.
• Familiarity with AWS, GCP, and OCI cloud environments.
• Expertise in capacity planning for large networks with minimal customer input.
• Proven success in on‑call rotations and incident response in high‑stakes environments.
• Strong problem‑solving…