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.

About the Role

Mission Managers collaborate directly with US 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.

A typical day may include:

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

Responsibilities

• 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

Required Qualifications

• Prior work in civic tech, public-interest technology, or federal programs.

• Experience with responsible AI practices (bias evaluation, explainability, red-teaming) 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

Preferred Qualifications

• 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 skills and adaptability in a fast-paced, ambiguous setting.

Interview Process

After submitting your application, the team reviews your CV and statement of exceptional work. If your application passes this stage, you will be invited to a 15 minute interview (“phone interview”) during which a member of our team will ask some basic questions. If you clear the initial phone interview, you will enter the main process, which consists of 1 project deep dive, 1 technical Demonstration, and 1 Final Exec Round.

• Hiring Manager Call

• Project deep-dive: Present and answer questions about exceptional work that you’ve done.

• Technical Demonstration

• Executive Round

Our goal is to finish the main process within one-two weeks. Final interviews will be conducted in person.

Annual Salary Range

$180,000 - $440,000 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. For details on data processing, view our Recruitment Privacy Notice.