Software Engineer, Core Network Engineering

OpenAI, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 342,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Software Engineer for its Core Network Engineering team in San Francisco. This role involves designing and operating networking systems for large-scale AI training, focusing on improving performance and reliability. Candidates should have experience with Linux networking, hardware/software interaction, and be proficient in C++, Python, or Go. The position offers a competitive salary ranging from $230K to $342K plus equity. Join us to build infrastructure vital for advancing AI research.

Qualifications

• Experience building or operating large-scale networking or distributed systems infrastructure.
• Strong fundamental knowledge across networking, operating systems, and distributed systems.
• Motivation to build infrastructure that accelerates AI research.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate networking systems for large-scale AI training.
• Improve performance and reliability of network systems.
• Develop automation for lifecycle management of networking infrastructure.
• Optimize network performance across various technologies.
• Partner with infrastructure teams to ensure scalability.

Skills

Linux networking

Hardware/software boundary experience

Performance-sensitive infrastructure software

Debugging complex systems

C++

Python

Go

Tools

InfiniBand

RoCE

DPDK

Job description

Software Engineer, Core Network Engineering

Location: San Francisco

About the Team

The Core Network Engineering team owns the end-to-end networking stack that connects OpenAI’s compute infrastructure — spanning global WAN/edge connectivity, data‑center networking, and high‑performance host/xPU networking used for large‑scale training and inference workloads. They design and operate systems that ensure networking is never the bottleneck to model training efficiency, cluster reliability, or fleet expansion. The team delivers predictable, high‑throughput, low‑latency connectivity across some of the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure.

About the Role

We’re looking for engineers to help build and operate the networking foundation behind OpenAI’s frontier AI systems. Depending on your background and area of focus, you may work across host networking, data‑center fabrics, or global WAN infrastructure. You’ll tackle low‑level systems software, distributed infrastructure, protocol readiness, observability, performance engineering, automation, and large‑scale network operations.

As a senior member of the team, you’ll help develop systems where microseconds of latency, tail performance, and network reliability directly impact model training efficiency and production serving performance. This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy operating close to the hardware/software boundary and solving performance‑critical infrastructure problems at massive scale.

In this role, you will:

• Design, build, and operate networking systems that support large‑scale AI training and inference infrastructure
• Improve performance, reliability, and scalability across host networking, data‑center fabrics, and WAN systems
• Develop automation for provisioning, configuration management, validation, upgrades, and lifecycle management of networking infrastructure
• Build tooling and observability systems for network health, performance analysis, debugging, and automated remediation
• Optimize network performance across technologies such as RDMA, RoCE, InfiniBand, Ethernet, and high‑performance GPU interconnects
• Define and operationalize networking protocols, readiness criteria, and continuous validation systems
• Partner closely with compute, storage, hardware, and infrastructure teams to ensure networking scales predictably with fleet growth
• Contribute to architecture decisions around topology design, capacity planning, failure domains, and network reliability
• Diagnose complex distributed systems and networking issues across large heterogeneous compute environments

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have experience building or operating large‑scale networking or distributed systems infrastructure
• Are comfortable working close to the hardware/software boundary
• Have experience with Linux networking, kernel systems, NICs, RDMA, or performance‑sensitive infrastructure software
• Have worked with high‑performance networking technologies such as InfiniBand, RoCE, DPDK, or large‑scale Ethernet fabrics
• Have experience with data‑center networking, WAN systems, or host networking stacks
• Enjoy debugging complex systems and performance bottlenecks across multiple layers of the stack
• Are comfortable writing production software in languages such as C++, Python, or Go
• Have strong systems fundamentals across networking, operating systems, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering
• Are motivated by building infrastructure that directly accelerates frontier AI research and deployment

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 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.

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Compensation

$230K – $342K + Offers Equity