Senior Privacy Engineering & Data Governance Architect

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

OpenAI in San Francisco is seeking a Software Engineer for Privacy Engineering to drive data governance across mapping, classification, lineage, retention, and access controls. You will define technical direction, build shared platforms, and lead cross-functional programs ensuring data flows are discoverable and ownership is explicit.

You will design APIs, metadata systems, and policy-enforcement mechanisms to keep governance scalable and auditable.

Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating large-scale data platforms, privacy infrastructure, or governance systems.
• Led architecture and multi-team execution for data-governance domains such as metadata, lineage, retention, and access governance.
• Able to translate policy, security, and product requirements into clear system boundaries and roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical strategy and architecture for user data governance across data mapping, classification, lineage, retention, deletion, access, and permitted usage.
• Design and build shared services, APIs, metadata systems, and policy-enforcement mechanisms for scalable governance.
• Establish inventories of user data, system ownership, data flows, and policy applicability across products and systems.
• Partner with Product, Data, Infrastructure, Security, and Legal leaders to define decision rights and drive adoption.
• Own governance systems in production through measurable controls, observability, migrations, and incident response.

Skills

Data governance

Privacy engineering

System architecture

Cross-team leadership

Policy enforcement

Job description

OpenAI in San Francisco is seeking a Software Engineer for Privacy Engineering to drive data governance across mapping, classification, lineage, retention, and access controls. You will define technical direction, build shared platforms, and lead cross-functional programs ensuring data flows are discoverable and ownership is explicit.

You will design APIs, metadata systems, and policy-enforcement mechanisms to keep governance scalable and auditable.