Research Engineer, Privacy

Details

The Privacy Engineering Team at OpenAI integrates privacy as a foundational element across products and systems that handle user data. The team builds production services, develops privacy-preserving techniques, and equips engineering and research partners with tools to ensure responsible data use.

About the Role

As part of the Privacy Engineering Team you will work on the frontlines of safeguarding user data while ensuring usability and efficiency of AI systems. You will help understand and implement research in privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) such as differential privacy and federated learning, investigate interactions between privacy and machine learning, improve data anonymization, and prevent model inversion and membership inference attacks. This position is located in San Francisco. Relocation assistance is available.

Responsibilities

• Design and prototype privacy-preserving machine-learning algorithms (e.g., differential privacy, secure aggregation, federated learning) suitable for deployment at OpenAI scale.
• Measure and strengthen model robustness against privacy attacks such as membership inference, model inversion, and data memorization leaks, balancing utility with provable guarantees.
• Develop internal libraries, evaluation suites, and documentation to make cutting-edge privacy techniques accessible to engineering and research teams.
• Lead deep-dive investigations into privacy–performance trade-offs of large models and publish insights to inform model-training and product-safety decisions.
• Define and codify privacy standards, threat models, and audit procedures guiding the ML lifecycle from dataset curation to post-deployment monitoring.
• Collaborate across Security, Policy, Product, and Legal to translate regulatory requirements into technical safeguards and tooling.

Requirements

• Hands-on research or production experience with privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).
• Fluency in modern deep-learning stacks (PyTorch, JAX) and ability to convert cutting-edge papers into reliable, well-tested code.
• Experience stress-testing models for private data leakage and explaining complex attack vectors to non-experts.
• Track record of publishing or implementing novel privacy or security work and bridging academic research with real-world systems.
• Ability to operate in fast-moving, cross-disciplinary environments, alternating between open-ended research and shipping production features under tight deadlines.
• Strong communication and documentation skills and a commitment to building AI systems that respect user privacy.

Benefits

• Base salary in the listed range plus equity and potential performance-related bonuses.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance 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 coordinated 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 and additional taxable fringe benefits (charitable donation matching, wellness stipends).

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring general-purpose AI benefits all of humanity. The company emphasizes safety, diverse perspectives, and equal opportunity hiring practices. Background checks and candidate accommodations are described in the hiring materials.