Software Engineer, Enterprise Controls

OpenAI, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 385,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) with employer match

Parental leave

Job summary

OpenAI, Inc. is seeking a Software Engineer for Enterprise Controls in San Francisco to shape and build the systems behind enterprise access, governance, and sharing across ChatGPT, Codex, and OpenAI APIs.

You will lead architecture, stay hands-on through production, and ensure secure, scalable enterprise controls. The role emphasizes backend engineering excellence, strong product judgment, and collaboration with multiple OpenAI teams.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of backend software engineering experience building and operating production services.
• Experience leading substantial initiatives with architectural decisions and cross-team delivery.
• Strong proficiency in a backend language (Python/Go/Rust/Java/C++).
• Experience designing distributed services, APIs, and data models.
• Experience building authorization, permissions, or enterprise governance systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and build backend services for permissions, authorization, and governance across OpenAI products.
• Develop sharing capabilities with clear access rules for administrators and users.
• Build reusable services and APIs to support workspace administration and console experiences.
• Lead architecture and delivery for complex initiatives with cross-team alignment.
• Translate enterprise needs into reliable configuration and permission behavior.
• Own reliability, security, and performance of shipped services through observability and production debugging.

Skills

Backend leadership

Distributed systems design

Product judgment

Communication skills

Production systems ownership

Security and observability

Tools

Python

Go

Rust

Java

C++

Job description

Software Engineer, Enterprise Controls | OpenAI

Careers

Software Engineer, Enterprise Controls

Codex - Engineering - San Francisco

About the Team

Enterprise Controls & Console is part of Enterprise Engineering. We build the permissions, governance, and administration capabilities that help organizations use and deploy ChatGPT, Codex, and OpenAI products with confidence. We give administrators granular controls over access and security, helping ensure that people and agents operate within the boundaries their organizations define.

Our work combines complex backend platform engineering with enterprise product needs and touches every major product and model launch. We build scalable, reusable services and intuitive administration experiences, and provide a shared controls foundation that enables internal teams to introduce new capabilities safely.

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced backend software engineer to help shape and build the systems behind enterprise access, governance, and sharing. You will bring deep backend expertise and strong product judgment to problems that span multiple OpenAI products, including how people and agents share access and work together. You will lead technical design and delivery, translate ambiguous enterprise needs into clear system behavior, and remain hands‑on from implementation through production operation. This role is based in San Francisco.

In this role, you will:

• Design and build backend services for permissions, authorization, and governance across ChatGPT, Codex, and OpenAI APIs.
• Develop sharing capabilities between people and agents, with clear access rules and enterprise controls that are understandable to administrators and users.
• Build reusable services and APIs that support workspace administration and console experiences as OpenAI products evolve.
• Lead architecture and delivery for complex initiatives, aligning product and engineering partners on requirements, tradeoffs, and rollout plans.
• Translate enterprise needs into clear configuration, predictable permission behavior, and maintainable systems that other product teams can build on.
• Own the reliability, security, and performance of the services you ship through testing, observability, production debugging, and continuous improvement.

Your background might look something like:

• 9+ years of professional backend software engineering experience, excluding internships, building and operating production services.
• Deep backend engineering expertise and a track record of shipping complex product or platform capabilities that customers depend on.
• Experience providing technical leadership for substantial initiatives, making architectural decisions, and coordinating delivery across teams while remaining hands‑on.
• Strong proficiency in a backend language such as Python, Go, Rust, Java, or C++, with sound software design and systems fundamentals.
• Experience designing distributed services, APIs, and data models, with an understanding of reliability, consistency, scalability, and performance tradeoffs.
• Experience building authorization, permissions, or enterprise governance systems, including translating access policies into reliable application behavior.
• Strong product judgment and communication skills, with the ability to turn ambiguous user and administrator needs into practical technical decisions.
• A track record of owning production systems, diagnosing difficult failures, and improving security, testing, observability, and operational reliability.

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 Affiantitive Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

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 .

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy

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.

Compensation

$230K – $385K + Offers Equity

The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non‑exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance‑related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
• Pre‑tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non‑birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non‑exempt employees
• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
• Mental health and wellness support
• Employer‑paid basic life and disability coverage
• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
• Relocation support for eligible employees
• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.

This role is at‑will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.