Research Engineer, Safety Engineering

Details

The Safety Systems team is dedicated to ensuring the safety, robustness, and reliability of AI models and their deployment in the real world. Building on practical alignment work and applied safety efforts, the team addresses emerging safety issues and develops solutions to enable safe deployment of advanced models.

Responsibilities

• Design and deploy advanced machine learning models and safety mitigations across model development and deployment (pre-training data filtration, post-training evaluation, deployment-time mitigations, continuous monitoring).
• Collaborate with researchers, software engineers, data scientists, and product managers to translate research into production-ready systems.
• Implement and scale data pipelines and optimize models for performance and accuracy.
• Participate in code reviews, share knowledge, and uphold high-quality engineering practices.
• Monitor and maintain deployed models to ensure continued alignment with safety and human-value objectives.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience in deep learning and transformer models.
• Familiarity with training and fine-tuning large language models, including methods such as distillation, supervised fine-tuning, and policy optimization.
• Proficiency in ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
• Strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, and software engineering principles.
• Experience with scalable data pipelines, model optimization, deployment, monitoring, and production ML systems.
• Ability to work collaboratively across research, product, and engineering teams and communicate technical trade-offs.

Benefits

• Base salary range listed separately; total compensation typically includes equity and potential performance-related bonuses.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts (Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, commuter expenses).
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental leave and additional paid medical/caregiver leave.
• Flexible PTO for exempt employees and paid time off for non-exempt employees.
• 13+ paid company holidays and coordinated office closures.
• Mental health and wellness support; employer-paid basic life and disability coverage.
• Annual learning & development stipend; daily meals in offices and meal delivery credits as eligible.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.
• Additional fringe benefits (charitable donation matching, wellness stipends).

Additional Information

• Background checks will be administered in accordance with applicable law; San Francisco and Los Angeles local fair chance ordinances are referenced for US-based candidates.
• OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.