Senior Staff Software Engineer, Gov

Details

About the Team

Join the engineering teams that bring OpenAI’s ideas safely to the world!

The Applied Engineering team works across research, engineering, product, and design to bring OpenAI’s technology to consumers and businesses. We seek to learn from deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this powerful tool is used responsibly and safely. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth.

About the Role

We’re seeking Software Engineers who can solve complex, high-impact problems across our stack. In this role, you’ll join a nimble team driving the deployment of OpenAI’s technology into new environments and infrastructure that power critical missions in the public sector.

You’ll work cross-functionally with product, security, and compliance teams to build the functionality needed to deliver a scalable, reliable platform. You’ll also partner directly with customers to design and build new products and features that create real-world impact.

From launching net-new capabilities to optimizing how we serve inference in unique, high-stakes environments, this role offers both breadth and technical depth—giving you the opportunity to shape the future of OpenAI’s technology where it matters most.

This role is based in Washington D.C., San Francisco, CA or Seattle, WA. Occasional travel to customer sites is required for this role.

In this role, you will

• Own the development of new customer-facing ChatGPT and OpenAI API features end-to-end, both on-premises and in the cloud, for our public sector customers.
• Partner and directly embed with teams across the business, including engineering, security, and compliance, to enable our products to work within the unique constraints of new environments.
• Talk to users to understand their problems and design solutions to address them
• Work with the research team to get relevant feedback and iterate on their latest models, developing solutions specific for public sector customers at both the model & data layers.
• Collaborate with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, product managers, designers, and operations folks to create cutting-edge products
• Optimize applications for speed and scale

You might thrive in this role if you

• US Citizen
• 9+ years of relevant engineering experience at tech and product-driven companies
• Proficiency with JavaScript, React, and other web technologies
• Proficiency with some backend language (we use Python)
• Some experience with underlying infrastructure primitives like Kubernetes and Terraform
• Interest in AI/ML (direct experience not required)
• Ability to move fast in an environment where things are sometimes loosely defined and may have competing priorities or deadlines
• An interest in enabling public sector use cases with unique requirements

Title note

At OpenAI, research and engineering hires share the internal title Member of Technical Staff. We use Senior Staff externally to signal the depth of experience, ownership, and technical leadership expected for this role.

Background checks and other notes

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law.

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.