Backend Software Engineer, API Enterprise Controls

Details

About the Team

API Enterprise Controls is part of the API Infrastructure organization and owns the platform capabilities that help developers, startups, and enterprises adopt the OpenAI API securely and confidently. We build the systems underneath our APIs and developer platform across authentication and identity, service accounts and key management, secure networking, compliance, auditability, observability, and operational controls. Our users are developers and teams running critical applications on OpenAI, and we partner closely with Product, go-to-market, security, and infrastructure teams to turn their most important needs into reliable, intuitive platform capabilities.

About the Role

We are looking for an exceptional backend software engineer to help define and ship the enterprise capabilities our API Platform needs to scale; this is a product-engineering role grounded in deep backend systems. You will work across databases, streaming systems, request routing, authentication, and developer-facing APIs while bringing strong product judgment, developer empathy, and attention to the small details that make a platform easier to understand, trust, and operate. You will lead large cross-functional initiatives, work closely with Product and go-to-market teams, engage directly with sophisticated users, and carry ambiguous needs from discovery through design, launch, and iteration.

In this role, you will:

• Own backend product capabilities end to end across authentication and identity, service accounts and key controls, secure networking, compliance, observability, and operational workflows.
• Partner with Product, go-to-market, security, infrastructure teams, and sophisticated customers to identify needs, shape the roadmap, and lead large cross-functional projects from design through launch.
• Design developer-facing APIs, system behavior, configuration, error handling, safe defaults, auditing, and notifications with exceptional care for the details that define a great developer experience.
• Build, operate, and debug highly reliable backend systems spanning databases, streaming infrastructure, request routing, and distributed services, with strong operational ownership.

Your background might look something like:

• 9+ years of professional engineering experience, excluding internships, in relevant backend, platform, or product-driven engineering roles.
• Exceptional backend engineering depth paired with strong product judgment and a track record of shipping API or platform capabilities that users depend on.
• Experience leading large cross-functional initiatives, influencing product direction, and aligning engineering, Product, go-to-market, security, and infrastructure partners.
• Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar, with strong software design and systems fundamentals.
• Experience with distributed systems, databases, streaming systems, request routing, authentication and identity, networking, or enterprise platform controls.
• Strong communication and developer empathy, including experience working closely with product partners and users to turn ambiguous needs into clear technical decisions.
• Strong opinions about reliability, DevOps, and operational excellence, paired with meticulous attention to the details that make complex systems feel simple and dependable.

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.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

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.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
• Mental health and wellness support
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
• Relocation support for eligible employees
• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided

More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.

This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.