Staff / Senior Staff Backend Engineer, B2B Flywheel
OpenAI · San Francisco, CA · Applied AI
About this role
OpenAI is hiring a senior-level Backend Engineer in the software engineering function based in San Francisco, CA. The posting calls out experience with Distributed Systems, API Development, Data Modeling, ETL. Compensation is listed at $293,000–$385,000 per year.
- Role
- Backend Engineer
- Function
- software engineering
- Level
- senior
- Track
- Tech leadership
- Employment
- Full-time
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Department
- Applied AI
- Posted
- May 14, 2026
More roles at OpenAI
Job description
from OpenAI careersAbout the Team
B2B Flywheel is a small, high-leverage team working at the intersection of data science, research, and engineering within OpenAI’s B2B organization. The team is focused on building the systems that help OpenAI better understand how businesses and developers use our models, where they encounter friction, and how those signals can improve our products, models, and customer experiences over time.
We operate in highly constrained production environments, including privacy safeguards, low-latency services, and high-traffic API systems. Our work spans real-time backend engineering, data infrastructure, research engineering, and applied data science. The team is small and highly execution-oriented, with broad ownership across the systems that capture, process, and translate critical product and usage signals into better B2B experiences.
About the Role
We’re looking for backend software engineers to help build the data and systems infrastructure behind OpenAI’s B2B flywheel. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys working across backend systems, data pipelines, and applied ML/DS-adjacent problems — especially in ambiguous, fast-moving environments where the path is not always predefined.
You’ll help design and build real-time engineering systems that operate across high-scale API and B2B surfaces, while partnering closely with data science, research, product, and engineering teams. Strong candidates will bring deep backend engineering ability, comfort with data-heavy systems, and the versatility to work across multiple technical domains.