ABOUT THE TEAM:

The Scaling team designs, builds, and operates critical infrastructure that enables research at OpenAI.

Our mission is simple: accelerate the progress of research towards AGI. We do this by building core systems that researchers rely on - ranging from low-level infrastructure components to research-facing custom applications. These systems must scale with the increasing complexity and size of our workloads, while remaining reliable and easy to use.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

As we grow, we’re looking for a pragmatic and versatile software engineer who thrives in fast-moving environments and enjoys building systems that empower others.

This is a generalist software engineering role with an emphasis on distributed systems, data processing infrastructure, and operational excellence. You’ll develop and operate foundational backend services that power key OpenAI’s research workflows - both by creating new infrastructure and by building on existing systems. The use cases will span across observability, analytics, performance engineering, and other domains, all with the goal of solving meaningful and impactful problems to research.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA or open to being remote within the US. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:

• Design, build, and operate scalable backend systems that support various ML research workflows, including observability and analytics.

• Develop reliable infrastructure that supports both streaming and batch data processing at scale.

• Creating internal-facing tools and applications as needed.

• Debug and improve performance of services running on Kubernetes, including operational tooling and observability.

• Collaborate with engineers and researchers to deliver reliable systems that meet real-world needs in production.

• Help improve system reliability by participating in the on-call rotation and responding to critical incidents.

YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU HAVE:

• Strong proficiency in Python/Rust and backend software development, ideally in large codebases.

• Experience with distributed systems and scalable data processing infrastructure, including technologies like Kafka, Spark, Trino/Presto, Iceberg.

• Hands-on experience operating services in Kubernetes, with familiarity in tools like Terraform and Helm.

• Comfort working across the stack - from low-level infrastructure components to application logic - and making trade-offs to move quickly.

• A focus on building systems that are both technically sound and easy for others to use.

• Curiosity and adaptability in fast-changing environments, especially in high-growth orgs.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf

At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.