Software Engineer, Infrastructure - Analytics

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 310,000 - 460,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative firm is seeking a versatile Software Engineer to join their Scaling team in San Francisco. This role involves designing and building scalable backend systems that support critical ML research workflows. You will work with distributed systems and data processing infrastructure, ensuring reliability and performance while collaborating with engineers and researchers. The company offers a hybrid work model and is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment. If you thrive in fast-paced settings and are passionate about building impactful systems, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Qualifications

• Strong proficiency in Python/Rust and backend software development.
• Experience with distributed systems and scalable data processing infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Design and operate scalable backend systems for ML research workflows.
• Develop infrastructure for streaming and batch data processing.

Skills

Python

Rust

Distributed Systems

Data Processing Infrastructure

Kubernetes

Operational Excellence

Observability

Performance Engineering

Tools

Kafka

Spark

Trino/Presto

Iceberg

Terraform

Helm

Job description

Software Engineer, Infrastructure - Analytics | OpenAI | OpenAI

Careers

Software Engineer, Infrastructure - Analytics

Scaling - San Francisco

About the Team

The Scaling team designs, builds, and operates critical infrastructure that enables research at OpenAI.

Our mission is simple: accelerate the progress of research towards AGI. We do this by building core systems that researchers rely on - ranging from low-level infrastructure components to research-facing custom applications. These systems must scale with the increasing complexity and size of our workloads, while remaining reliable and easy to use.

About the Role

As we grow, we’re looking for a pragmatic and versatile software engineer who thrives in fast-moving environments and enjoys building systems that empower others.

This is a generalist software engineering role with an emphasis on distributed systems, data processing infrastructure, and operational excellence. You’ll develop and operate foundational backend services that power key OpenAI’s research workflows - both by creating new infrastructure and by building on existing systems. The use cases will span across observability, analytics, performance engineering, and other domains, all with the goal of solving meaningful and impactful problems to research.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA or open to being remote within the US. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Design, build, and operate scalable backend systems that support various ML research workflows, including observability and analytics.

• Develop reliable infrastructure that supports both streaming and batch data processing at scale.

• Create internal-facing tools and applications as needed.

• Debug and improve performance of services running on Kubernetes, including operational tooling and observability.

• Collaborate with engineers and researchers to deliver reliable systems that meet real-world needs in production.

• Help improve system reliability by participating in the on-call rotation and responding to critical incidents.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Strong proficiency in Python/Rust and backend software development, ideally in large codebases.

• Experience with distributed systems and scalable data processing infrastructure, including technologies like Kafka, Spark, Trino/Presto, Iceberg.

• Hands-on experience operating services in Kubernetes, with familiarity in tools like Terraform and Helm.

• Comfort working across the stack - from low-level infrastructure components to application logic - and making trade-offs to move quickly.

• A focus on building systems that are both technically sound and easy for others to use.

• Curiosity and adaptability in fast-changing environments, especially in high-growth orgs.

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 do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

For US Based Candidates: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

Compensation

$310K – $460K + Offers Equity