Infrastructure Security Engineer, Datacenter

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 engineers are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role:
We are seeking a talented and motivated Infrastructure Security Engineer, Datacenter to join our security team. In this role, you will design, implement, and maintain secure on-prem datacenter infrastructure, focusing on physical, hardware, GPU, BIOS, and bare metal provisioning security to protect our AI supercomputing environments and ensure the integrity of our datacenter-native applications.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and implement secure datacenter architectures, including physical access controls, hardware security modules (HSMs), GPU security configurations, BIOS/UEFI hardening, bare metal provisioning security, and on-prem network segmentation.

• Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) templates with embedded security controls for datacenter provisioning, including secure bare metal deployments.

• Conduct regular security assessments, audits, and vulnerability analysis of datacenter infrastructure, servers, storage, networking equipment, GPUs, and BIOS firmware. Implement and manage datacenter security tools and services (e.g., intrusion detection systems, physical monitoring, firmware security scanners, GPU security tools).

• Collaborate with operations teams to integrate security best practices into datacenter buildouts, maintenance workflows, and full stack security research.

• Monitor and respond to security events and incidents in datacenter environments, including physical breaches and hardware vulnerabilities.

• Develop and maintain datacenter security policies, standards, and procedures, covering colocation, owned facilities, GPU/BIOS security, and bare metal provisioning. Stay current with emerging datacenter security threats, hardware vulnerabilities, GPU-specific risks, BIOS exploits, and mitigation strategies for AI workloads.

Ideal Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related field. 3-5 years of experience in datacenter security or related on-prem infrastructure roles, including vulnerability analysis and full stack security research.

• Strong understanding of datacenter security principles, compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001), and best practices for GPU, BIOS, and bare metal security.

• Proficiency in on-prem infrastructure management, including servers (e.g., Dell, HPE), networking (e.g., Cisco, Arista), storage systems, and GPU clusters (e.g., NVIDIA).

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet) for secure datacenter automation and bare metal provisioning.

• Familiarity with virtualization and containerization technologies (e.g., VMware, Kubernetes) and their security implications in datacenters, including GPU passthrough security.

• Knowledge of physical security concepts, access protocols, environmental controls, BIOS security, and vulnerability scanning tools.

• Experience with scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash) for automation, tool development, and security research.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Relevant security certifications (e.g., CISSP, CISM, CompTIA Security+, GIAC). Experience with multi-datacenter environments, hybrid cloud-on-prem security, and full stack vulnerability analysis.

• Knowledge of DevSecOps practices and tools for datacenter operations, including secure bare metal provisioning.

• Familiarity with regulatory compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS) in datacenter contexts.

• Experience securing high-performance computing (HPC) or AI/ML workloads in datacenters, with focus on GPU and BIOS security.

Bonus Skills:

• Experience building custom datacenter security tools or integrations for GPU, BIOS, and vulnerability analysis.

• Interest in leveraging AI for datacenter security monitoring, automation, and full stack research.

• Contributions to open-source datacenter security projects. Experience with firmware security, BIOS/UEFI hardening, supply chain security for hardware, or bare metal provisioning tools (e.g., MAAS, Foreman).

Annual Salary Range

$200,000 - $340,000 USD

Benefits

Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at xAI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.

xAI is an equal opportunity employer.

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