staff Software Engineer tech_leadership · Posted May 14, 2026
$347,700 – $385,000
USD per year

About this role

OpenAI is hiring a staff-level Software Engineer based in San Francisco, CA. The posting calls out experience with Python, Rust, Distributed Systems, System Design. Compensation is listed at $347,700–$385,000 per year.

Role
Software Engineer
Function
software engineering
Level
staff
Track
Tech leadership
Employment
Full-time
Location
San Francisco, CA
Department
IT
Posted
May 14, 2026

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Job description

from OpenAI careers

About the Team

Security is at the foundation of OpenAI’s mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Identity Infrastructure Engineering team sits at the core of this effort, designing and building the identity and access management solutions that protect our model weights, customer data, and critical systems across multiple cloud environments. We partner with teams across OpenAI—Applied Engineering, Research, IT, and Security—to provide a secure and scalable platform for permissioning, orchestration, and innovative AI research.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Staff+ Software Engineer to help build and evolve the identity infrastructure that supports OpenAI’s research, engineering, and internal platforms.

This role sits at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, identity systems, and software engineering. You’ll work across production systems, infrastructure-as-code, cloud control planes, identity providers, and operational infrastructure to build secure, scalable, and reliable systems used broadly across the company.

The ideal candidate has experience building and operating large-scale, mission-critical systems with strong reliability and security requirements, and is comfortable writing production code, designing distributed systems, and driving ambiguous projects from 0 to 1 while building the operational rigor needed to run critical infrastructure over time.

In this role, you will:

  • Lead the architecture, development, and operation of identity infrastructure that spans cloud platforms, internal systems, and critical engineering services.

    This is an excerpt. Read the full job description on OpenAI careers →
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