Senior Staff Software Engineer, Gov

OpenAI; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI, located in Washington D.C., is seeking a Software Engineer to tackle complex problems while deploying cutting-edge AI technology into public sector environments. This role involves developing new customer-facing ChatGPT and API features, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and ensuring reliable platform functionality tailored for unique public sector requests. Candidates should have over 9 years of relevant engineering experience, proficiency in JavaScript and Python, and a strong interest in AI/ML applications.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of relevant engineering experience at tech and product-driven companies.
• Proficiency with JavaScript, React, and other web technologies.
• Some experience with infrastructure primitives like Kubernetes and Terraform.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

Responsibilities

• Own development of ChatGPT and OpenAI API features end-to-end for public sector customers.
• Partner with engineering, security, and compliance teams.
• Talk to users to understand their problems and design solutions.
• Collaborate with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, product managers, and designers.

Skills

JavaScript

React

Python

Kubernetes

Terraform

AI/ML interest

Job description

About the Team

Join the engineering teams that bring OpenAI’s ideas safely to the world!

The Applied Engineering team works across research, engineering, product, and design to bring OpenAI’s technology to consumers and businesses. We seek to learn from deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this powerful tool is used responsibly and safely. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth.

About the Role

We’re seeking Software Engineers who can solve complex, high-impact problems across our stack. In this role, you’ll join a nimble team driving the deployment of OpenAI’s technology into new environments and infrastructure that power critical missions in the public sector.

You’ll work cross-functionally with product, security, and compliance teams to build the functionality needed to deliver a scalable, reliable platform. You’ll also partner directly with customers to design and build new products and features that create real-world impact.

From launching net-new capabilities to optimizing how we serve inference in unique, high‑stakes environments, this role offers both breadth and technical depth—giving you the opportunity to shape the future of OpenAI’s technology where it matters most.

This role is based in Washington D.C., San Francisco, CA or Seattle, WA. Occasional travel to customer sites is required for this role.

In this role, you will:

• Own the development of new customer‑facing ChatGPT and OpenAI API features end‑to‑end, both on‑premises and in the cloud, for our public sector customers.
• Partner and directly embed with teams across the business, including engineering, security, and compliance, to enable our products to work within the unique constraints of new environments.
• Talk to users to understand their problems and design solutions to address them.
• Work with the research team to get relevant feedback and iterate on their latest models, developing solutions specific for public sector customers at both the model & data layers.
• Collaborate with a cross‑functional team of engineers, researchers, product managers, designers, and operations folks to create cutting‑edge products.
• Optimize applications for speed and scale.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• US Citizen
• 9+ years of relevant engineering experience at tech and product‑driven companies
• Proficiency with JavaScript, React, and other web technologies
• Proficiency with some backend language (we use Python)
• Some experience with underlying infrastructure primitives like Kubernetes and Terraform
• Interest in AI/ML (direct experience not required)
• Ability to move fast in an environment where things are sometimes loosely defined and may have competing priorities or deadlines
• An interest in enabling public sector use cases with unique requirements

Title note: At OpenAI, research and engineering hires share the internal title Member of Technical Staff. We use Senior Staff externally to signal the depth of experience, ownership, and technical leadership expected for this role.

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 Aff…

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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