Software Engineer, Research - Human Data

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 385,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is looking for software engineers to join the Human Data team in San Francisco, CA. This hybrid role involves developing platforms and tools that facilitate the training and evaluation of AI models, requiring collaboration with researchers. The ideal candidate has strong software engineering skills and is motivated by impactful teamwork.

The compensation range for this position is $230,000 - $385,000, reflecting the importance of the role in shaping future AI technologies.

Qualifications

• Experience building production systems at scale.
• End-to-end ownership of full-stack development.
• Motivated by collaboration and solving complex problems.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain full-stack systems for feedback collection.
• Translate research into scalable production infrastructure.
• Design user-facing tools for data workflows.
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers.
• Drive infrastructure improvements for model interaction.

Skills

Software engineering fundamentals

Full-stack development

Collaboration with research teams

Problem-solving

Inclusive tooling

Job description

About The Team

OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. The Human Data team is at the heart of that effort. The Human Data engineering team creates the systems that enable scalable, high-quality human feedback, which is essential to how OpenAI trains and improves its most advanced models. Engineers on this team collaborate closely with world‑class researchers to bring alignment techniques to life— from experimental ideas to production‑ready feedback loops.

About The Role

We’re looking for software engineers to join the Human Data team and build the platforms, prototypes, tools, and infrastructure that power how our AI models are trained, aligned, and evaluated. You’ll partner with researchers and cross‑functional teams to bring alignment ideas to life, influence future model training, and shape how models interact with the real world. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In This Role, You Will

• Build and maintain robust full‑stack systems for feedback collection, data labeling, and evaluation pipelines, while maintaining high levels of security.
• Translate experimental alignment research into scalable production infrastructure, including inference and model training stacks.
• Design and iterate on user‑facing tools and backend services to support high‑quality data workflows.
• Partner with researchers, engineers, and program leads to shape feedback loops and model interaction paradigms.
• Drive infrastructure improvements that enable faster iteration and scaling across OpenAI’s frontier models, from internal research tooling all the way to production ChatGPT.

You Might Thrive In This Role If You

• Have strong software engineering fundamentals and experience building production systems at scale.
• Enjoy full‑stack development with end‑to‑end ownership— from backend pipelines to user interfaces.
• Are motivated by high‑impact collaboration with research teams and solving novel, ambiguous problems.
• Are excited to shape how AI systems learn from human preferences and reflect a broad range of human values.
• Care deeply about inclusive tooling and building systems that enhance model safety, reliability, and usefulness.

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.

Compensation

Compensation Range: $230,000 - $385,000

Equal Opportunity Employment

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 affirmative action and equal employment opportunity policy statement.

Background Checks and Compliance

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. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made through the company’s accessibility resources.