Senior Backend Engineer, Privacy & Compliance

OpenAI; California (MO); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Software Engineer to architect and build backend systems that enforce data privacy and automate compliance at scale. You’ll collaborate with product, infrastructure, security, and legal teams to embed privacy-by-design into data and access layers.

This is a hands-on role for an experienced engineer who is passionate about protecting user data while enabling innovation and scale across OpenAI’s platforms.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of industry experience building and operating backend or infrastructure systems in production.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate backend services that enforce policy-driven data access, lifecycle controls, and privacy protections.
• Develop distributed authorization and identity-aware enforcement mechanisms integrated directly into data services and control planes.
• Implement auditability, policy hooks, and enforcement observability to ensure compliance is continuously verifiable.
• Partner with Security, Legal, and Compliance to convert privacy requirements into scalable technical designs and developer-friendly APIs.
• Harden data platforms and backend services through schema-level controls and data handling constraints by default.
• Collaborate with infrastructure teams to ensure consistent enforcement across systems while minimizing duplicated implementations.
• Contribute patterns, libraries, and education that elevate trustworthy data access patterns across the organization.

Skills

Python

Go

Rust

Java

Tools

RBAC/ACL systems

Policy engines

Encryption-based access

Job description

OpenAI is seeking a Software Engineer to architect and build backend systems that enforce data privacy and automate compliance at scale. You’ll collaborate with product, infrastructure, security, and legal teams to embed privacy-by-design into data and access layers.

This is a hands-on role for an experienced engineer who is passionate about protecting user data while enabling innovation and scale across OpenAI’s platforms.