Software Engineer, Monetization Product & Platform

OpenAI; Los Angeles (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Job summary

A leading AI research company in California is seeking an experienced Software Engineer for their Monetization team. This role involves building core monetization infrastructures and developing advertiser-facing APIs while collaborating with product, design, and research teams. The ideal candidate has over 7 years of experience in high-scale system development, a track record of architecting complex distributed systems, and a passion for user-first, privacy-preserving products. Relocation assistance is available.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience building high-scale consumer systems.
• Track record of architecting and delivering complex distributed systems.
• Ability to navigate ambiguous product spaces.

Responsibilities

• Design and build core infrastructure for monetization products.
• Develop APIs for advertisers to manage ads.
• Architect systems with strong reliability and performance.

Skills

High-scale consumer system development

Architecting complex distributed systems

Collaboration with product teams

Communication skills

Job description

Software Engineer, Monetization Product & Platform

Applied AI Engineering - San Francisco and Seattle

The Monetization team is a new cross-functional group working across engineering, product, research, and design to build the foundational systems that will help OpenAI scale access to intelligence responsibly. Our mission is to develop user-first, privacy-preserving monetization products—including next-generation ads experiences—that strengthen user trust, unlock economic opportunity, and support OpenAI’s long-term innovation.

Monetization plays a critical role in enabling OpenAI to continue pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities while ensuring the benefits of AGI are broadly shared. We believe monetization must be aligned with user value, uphold rigorous privacy and safety standards, and sustain a healthy ecosystem of developers and businesses.

This team operates in a greenfield environment and moves quickly through prototyping, experimentation, and iterative deployment. We partner closely with Product, Design, and Research to bring research breakthroughs into real-world systems at global scale.

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced Software Engineer to help build the core monetization and ads systems at OpenAI. This is a foundational role responsible for designing and implementing the infrastructure, APIs, and user-facing experiences that will power OpenAI’s next‑generation monetization products—including ads.

You’ll work across the full technical stack to architect, build, and ship 0→1 systems that are robust, safe, and scalable. You will collaborate deeply with Product, Design, and Research to define the future of monetized AI experiences and ensure these systems meet OpenAI’s highest standards for safety, privacy, and policy alignment.

This role is exclusively based across our San Francisco and Seattle sites. We offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

Design, build, and scale the core infrastructure behind OpenAI’s monetization and ads products

Develop advertiser‑facing APIs and tools that enable the creation, management, and measurement of ads

Build integrations with external partners and help create enterprise‑grade monetization products

Architect distributed systems and services that operate at massive scale with strong reliability, usability, privacy, and performance guarantees

Work closely with Product, Research, and Design to translate product requirements into high‑quality technical solutions

Drive 0→1 product development through rapid prototyping, experimentation, and iterative deployment

Contribute to technical strategy, propose new directions, and help shape the roadmap for monetization and ads platforms

Maintain high engineering rigor through strong testing, documentation, and operational best practices

Uphold the highest levels of safety, privacy, fairness, and policy compliance across all monetization systems

Help continuously refine engineering processes, culture, and best practices within a fast‑moving, multidisciplinary team

You might thrive in this role if you:

Have 7+ years of experience building high‑scale consumer, enterprise, or ads‑related systems

Have a track record of architecting and delivering complex distributed systems with high reliability and performance requirements

Are comfortable navigating ambiguous product spaces and contributing to technical roadmaps and long‑term direction

Bring strong product intuition and enjoy collaborating deeply with Product, Design, and Research

Thrive in 0→1 environments where systems, architecture, and user experiences must be defined from scratch

Communicate clearly, think holistically, and make decisions rooted in both user needs and long‑term sustainability

Are motivated by building privacy‑preserving, safe, and user‑first monetization systems

Bonus: Have experience in ads systems, marketplaces, or other monetization‑heavy domains

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.

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.

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

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.