Network Engineer

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Hybrid work model

Job summary

OpenAI’s Network Engineering team designs, operates, and continuously improves global networks connecting offices, labs, campuses, PoPs, cloud environments, people, and devices.

We partner across security and identity teams to apply least privilege and Zero Trust, while embracing automation and IaC. This role is based in San Francisco with a hybrid 3-day-in-office model and relocation assistance for new employees.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience designing and operating enterprise networks.
• Strong routing and switching fundamentals (BGP/OSPF, VLAN/VRF).
• Experience with network observability tools and telemetry.
• Ability to automate infrastructure using code and APIs.

Responsibilities

• Design, operate, and improve global networks across offices, labs, campuses, PoPs, and cloud environments.
• Set strategic direction for network services with architecture, roadmaps, and lifecycle planning.
• Own production operations including on-call, incident response, and escalations, ensuring security and business continuity.

Skills

Network design

Routing & switching

Observability

Automation

Security basics

Tools

Cisco IOS

Cisco Meraki

Palo Alto

Arista

Job description

OpenAI’s Network Engineering team within IT and Security advances the mission of deploying artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the benefit of all by delivering secure, scalable, and resilient network services. We build and operate the connectivity that supports OpenAI’s offices, labs, campuses, cloud environments, people, and devices. By combining strong network fundamentals with security, reliability, automation, and user-centered design, we enable impactful AI research, corporate operations, and product innovation.

About the Role

As a Network Engineer at OpenAI, you will design, operate, and continuously improve the global networks that connect our offices, labs, campuses, PoPs, cloud environments, people, and devices. The role spans strategic platform engineering and responsive production operations: you will shape architecture, standards, roadmaps, lifecycle plans, and automation while supporting incidents, escalations, and time-sensitive delivery. Operational signals will inform what we stabilize, simplify, standardize, or automate next.

In this role, you will:

• Design, implement, and operate secure, scalable enterprise networks across offices, labs, campuses, PoPs, cloud connectivity, and hybrid environments.
• Set strategic direction for network services through architecture, standards, roadmaps, lifecycle planning, capacity strategy, and measurable reliability outcomes.
• Own production operations, including on-call, incident response, escalations, and time-sensitive delivery, while protecting user experience, security, and business continuity.
• Use incident learning, problem management, ticket trends, and telemetry as roadmap inputs, eliminating recurring failure modes through automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, and safer operating standards.
• Develop dashboards, telemetry, alerts, and health checks that provide actionable visibility into network performance and failure domains.
• Implement and operate routing, switching, wireless, WAN, Internet edge, firewall, NAC, segmentation, and core network services.
• Lead network changes, migrations, refreshes, site launches, and service improvements from design through validation and operational handoff.
• Partner with security and identity teams to apply least privilege, Zero Trust principles, RBAC, device identity, and appropriate access controls.
• Balance long-term platform improvements with urgent operational priorities through clear ownership, documented decisions, deliberate tradeoffs, and transparent communication.

You may be a fit for this role if you have:

• Hands-on experience designing and operating enterprise networks using platforms such as Cisco IOS, Cisco Meraki, Palo Alto, Arista, or equivalent technologies.
• Strong routing and switching fundamentals, including BGP, OSPF, VLAN/VRF design, WAN, Internet edge, and high-availability patterns.
• Production troubleshooting experience across packets, logs, telemetry, configurations, circuits, and physical infrastructure.
• Experience with network observability using tools and protocols such as SNMP, syslog, NetFlow, packet capture, ELK, Grafana, or comparable platforms.
• Strong network security fundamentals, including ACLs, firewalls, VPN, 802.1X/NAC, device profiling, segmentation, and least privilege.
• Ability to automate infrastructure using a modern programming language and tools such as Python, Go, Terraform, Ansible, APIs, Git, and CI/CD.
• Experience with enterprise wireless and at least one cloud or hybrid connectivity environment.
• Clear communication, sound operational judgment, and the ability to own outcomes while partnering across technical and business teams

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Experience shaping a multi-quarter network roadmap while supporting production operations and changing delivery needs.
• Experience with optical transport and carrier services, including DWDM, wavelengths, dark fiber, DIA, or similar technologies.
• Experience with cloud and virtual WAN architectures such as Azure Virtual WAN, AWS Transit Gateway, or comparable services.
• Experience with campus, data center, colocation, or PoP architecture, interconnects, high-availability design, and operational handoff.
• Experience building internal platforms, self-service workflows, or AI-assisted automation that measurably reduces operational toil.

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

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.

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 . 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 .

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.