Software Engineer, Foundations Search

Details

The Foundations Research team works on high-risk, high-reward ideas that could shape the next decade of AI. The team advances the science and data supporting training and scaling efforts for future frontier models, including data, scaling laws, optimization techniques, model architectures, and efficiency improvements.

The Search team builds agentic search by co-designing model-system interfaces with the core search stack, including serving, indexing, and retrieval. The team develops large-scale systems that transform and index vast corpora, enabling models to reason over global knowledge and act dependably.

This role focuses on building and scaling retrieval systems and infrastructure that enables models to retrieve and act on the right information at the right time. The work includes designing and operating indexing systems, retrieval pipelines, and serving layers, with direct impact on system performance, reliability, and scale across OpenAI products and research.

Responsibilities

• Build and scale retrieval infrastructure across indexing, serving, and query execution.
• Develop low-latency, high-throughput systems for real-time model interaction.
• Partner with research teams to productionize embedding and retrieval techniques.
• Support dense, sparse, and hybrid retrieval pipelines.
• Own system performance, reliability, and observability at scale.
• Collaborate across Pretraining, Inference, and Product teams to integrate retrieval end to end.
• Contribute to model-system interfaces for agentic workflows.

Requirements

• Experience building and scaling distributed systems.
• Background in search, retrieval, or indexing systems.
• Familiarity with embedding-based or machine-learning-powered systems.
• Experience with performance optimization and production reliability.
• Ability to work across machine learning and systems boundaries.
• First-principles thinking in ambiguous problem spaces.

Benefits

• Base salary of $295,000–$555,000 per year, plus equity.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts for health, dependent care, and commuter expenses.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Paid time off, company holidays, and paid office closures.
• Mental health and wellness support.
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage.
• Annual learning and development stipend.
• Daily office meals and eligible meal delivery credits.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.
• Additional benefits may include charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.

OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer committed to reasonable accommodations and compliance with applicable employment and fair-chance laws.