Founding Full Stack Software Engineer, Legal

Details

The Legal team is building the next generation of AI-powered products and experiences for the legal industry. We are exploring how advanced AI systems can transform legal workflows, improve access to information, and enable legal professionals and organizations to work more effectively.

As a founding member of the Legal engineering team, you will help define the technical foundation for this new product area from the earliest stages. Youll operate at the intersection of AI, product, and real-world legal workflowsidentifying opportunities, building prototypes, and turning emerging ideas into scalable products that can create meaningful impact.

We operate with a startup-like mindset inside OpenAI: small teams, rapid iteration cycles, and a willingness to explore bold ideas, learn quickly, and adapt based on user feedback. Our goal is to build products that meaningfully improve how legal professionals work while leveraging OpenAIs cutting-edge models and infrastructure.

About the Role

As a Founding Full-Stack Software Engineer on the Legal team, you will help imagine, build, and scale new AI-powered products for the legal industry. Youll work across the stack to design intuitive user experiences, build robust backend systems, and create the foundations for products used by legal professionals and organizations around the world.

Youll have significant ownership from the earliest stagesworking closely with product, design, research, and go-to-market partners to understand customer needs, shape product direction, and deliver high-impact solutions. This includes rapidly prototyping new concepts, building production-quality applications on top of OpenAIs platforms, and developing new technical approaches when existing systems are not sufficient.

Were looking for engineers who thrive in ambiguity, have strong product instincts, and enjoy building from 01. You should be comfortable moving quickly, making thoughtful technical decisions, and taking ownership across the entire product lifecyclefrom initial exploration through launch and scale.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship full-stack products that leverage OpenAI models to solve complex problems in legal workflows.
• Own projects end-to-end, from early prototypes and technical exploration through production deployment and iteration.
• Design and develop intuitive user experiences across frontend and backend systems.
• Build scalable, reliable systems on top of OpenAIs internal platforms and APIs while contributing new technical foundations where needed.
• Partner closely with product managers, designers, researchers, applied AI teams, and customers to identify opportunities and translate insights into impactful products.
• Rapidly prototype and experiment with new AI capabilities, using real-world feedback to guide product decisions.
• Develop a deep understanding of legal workflows, customer needs, and industry challenges to inform technical strategy.
• Help establish engineering culture, technical standards, and product practices as an early member of the team.
• Learn from and contribute alongside deeply experienced engineers while fostering a high-trust, inclusive, and candid team environment.

Requirements

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience building and shipping full-stack applications end-to-end, from early prototypes through production systems.
• Comfortable solving ambiguous, open-ended problems and turning broad ideas into shipped products.
• Strong frontend and backend engineering skills and enjoyment of working across the stack.
• Comfortable moving quickly, iterating based on feedback, and making pragmatic technical decisions.
• Strong product instincts and experience collaborating directly with users and cross-functional partners.
• Interest in emerging AI capabilities and rethinking how software is built.
• Ability to learn quickly, pick up new technologies as needed, and choose appropriate tools to solve problems effectively.
• Thrive in small, high-ownership teams where engineers influence product direction and technical strategy.
• Willingness to give and receive direct, constructive feedback with clarity and respect.

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.

OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Background checks will be administered in accordance with applicable law.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses.
• 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.
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees.
• 13+ paid company holidays and multiple coordinated company office closures, plus paid sick or safe time as required by law.
• Mental health and wellness support; employer-paid basic life and disability coverage.
• Annual learning and development stipend.
• Daily meals in offices and meal delivery credits as eligible.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.
• Additional taxable fringe benefits such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.