The role
ABOUT THE TEAM
The Software Engineering team is responsible for designing and building the scalable, performant, and secure backend systems that power our products—from early prototypes to large-scale deployments. We collaborate closely with product, hardware, and full-stack teams to ensure our infrastructure enables fast iteration while setting a strong foundation for long-term growth.
ABOUT THE ROLE
As a Backend Engineer, you will design and build services, APIs, and infrastructure that support evolving product needs. You’ll apply a deep understanding of backend systems and maintain enough end-to-end context—from hardware to cloud—to guide technical decisions that best serve the product and team.
We’re looking for engineers who thrive in fast-paced, collaborative environments and care deeply about building robust systems that scale.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of four days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:
- Architect, build, and maintain high-performance, secure backend systems.
- Design APIs, data models, and infrastructure to support evolving product needs.
- Balance near-term development velocity with long-term maintainability and scalability.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure cohesive, end-to-end solutions.
YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU:
- Have 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a focus on backend systems.
- Have a proven track record of building and scaling systems from early stage to large scale.
- Are proficient with Python and Go, and familiar with a range of server-side technologies.
- Have a strong grasp of system design, performance optimization, and security best practices.
- Can reason about full-stack tradeoffs from hardware through cloud infrastructure.
- (Nice to have) Have experience with distributed systems and cloud architectures.
- (Nice to have) Bring a background in instrumentation, analytics, and performance tuning.
- (Nice to have) Are familiar with hardware-cloud integrations or applied AI services.
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.
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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.