AI Silicon Systems Software Engineer

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 266,000 - 445,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for demanding AI workloads. This role focuses on software bringup from first power‑on to a production‑ready system running models, defining diagnostics, automation, and observability to accelerate issue isolation.

You'll work at the center of silicon, firmware, platform, and workload teams, translating specifications into an end‑to‑end bringup plan and establishing stress and regression infrastructure for

Qualifications

• Strong systems programming experience in C, C++, Rust, Python.
• Experience bringing up or validating silicon or hardware systems.
• Understanding computer architecture and the behavior of compute, memory, interconnect, and I/O subsystems.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the end-to-end software bringup and validation strategy for new silicon and first-party systems.
• Define software-driven test coverage across compute, memory, interconnect, I/O, and their system-level interactions.
• Build diagnostics, test automation, telemetry, and regression infrastructure that accelerate first-silicon learning and issue isolation.
• Lead bringup from initial silicon arrival through board and system integration, docking, runtime enablement, and model execution.
• Design stress tests that characterize reliability, performance, and stability across workloads and operating conditions.
• Translate architecture specifications and performance models into measurable acceptance criteria, coverage goals, and pass/fail signals.
• Debug complex hardware-software failures, drive root-cause analysis, and coordinate fixes across silicon, firmware, electrical, platform, and workload teams.
• Validate that integrated systems deliver expected functionality and model performance, and turn bringup learnings into reusable infrastructure for future generations.

Skills

C

C++

Rust

Python

Systems programming

Job description

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for demanding AI workloads. This role focuses on software bringup from first power‑on to a production‑ready system running models, defining diagnostics, automation, and observability to accelerate issue isolation.

You'll work at the center of silicon, firmware, platform, and workload teams, translating specifications into an end‑to‑end bringup plan and establishing stress and regression infrastructure for