Software Engineer, HSM Infrastructure Security, Consumer Devices

Details

We are hiring a Security Software Engineer to design and implement the hardware-backed security foundations used across OpenAI’s device ecosystem.

A central focus of this role is hardening the boundary between policy systems and HSMs that protect sensitive cryptographic keys. This boundary determines which operations may be performed, what may be signed, which policies must be satisfied, and how changes to trusted software and policy are authorized.

This hands-on software engineering role involves designing systems, writing and reviewing production code, debugging across hardware and software boundaries, and carrying projects from requirements through deployment. It is not an HSM administration, PKI operations, compliance, or architecture-only position.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement security-critical software and firmware for HSMs, secure elements, trusted execution environments, and hardware roots of trust.
• Build and harden policy-to-HSM boundaries authorizing certificate issuance and cryptographic signing operations.
• Develop HSM trusted applications, firmware components, host interfaces, device drivers, SDKs, and cryptographic service integrations.
• Implement or extend PKCS#11, OpenSSL providers or engines, platform key-storage APIs, and comparable hardware-security interfaces.
• Build firmware and software enforcing key generation, provisioning, usage, rotation, recovery, and destruction policies.
• Design and implement HSM-backed certificate authority, code-signing, key-management, and device-identity systems.
• Develop cryptographic protocols spanning devices, secure hardware, policy services, and backend infrastructure.
• Build capabilities supporting device attestation, secure boot, factory provisioning and restoration, user registration, and authentication.
• Design verifiable, auditable controls for trusted software and policy changes, including appropriate multi-party authorization.
• Write, review, test, and audit secure embedded software for resource-constrained environments.
• Develop test harnesses, emulators, fuzzers, and fault-injection tooling.
• Threat-model hardware and software trust boundaries and translate findings into engineering improvements.
• Collaborate with hardware, firmware, infrastructure, application, and security teams.
• Help establish engineering standards for HSM development, applied cryptography, secure key management, and certificate infrastructure.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience building secure embedded firmware for constrained environments.
• Deep programming experience in C, C++, or Rust.
• A strong track record of designing, implementing, debugging, and shipping production systems software.
• Hands-on experience developing security-critical software or firmware within or directly adjacent to an HSM, secure element, trusted execution environment, or hardware root of trust.
• Experience with one or more of HSM firmware or trusted applications, cryptographic mechanisms, hardware-accelerated cryptographic services, HSM drivers or middleware, PKCS#11 integrations, secure key provisioning, HSM-backed certificate authorities, code-signing systems, or hardware-backed signing-policy enforcement.
• Strong knowledge of applied cryptography, digital signatures, key hierarchies, secure key management, and cryptographic protocol design.
• Experience with PKI, X.509 certificates, certificate authorities, certificate issuance, and certificate lifecycle protocols.
• Familiarity with secure boot, measured boot, device identity, remote attestation, or hardware-backed storage.
• Experience reasoning about concurrency, memory safety, privilege separation, hardware interfaces, failure modes, and side-channel or physical attack considerations.
• Ability to evaluate security designs and implement the software required to realize them.
• Clear communication skills and the ability to collaborate across hardware, firmware, backend, and product teams.

Additional Helpful Experience

• Firmware development for ARM TrustZone or another trusted execution environment.
• Commercial or cloud HSM platforms such as Thales Luna, Entrust/nShield, Utimaco, Marvell LiquidSecurity, or AWS CloudHSM.
• PKCS#11, KMIP, OpenSSL providers or engines, secure-element APIs, or platform-native key-storage frameworks.
• Device manufacturing, secure provisioning, factory restore, or silicon bring-up.
• Secure boot ROM, bootloader, firmware-signing, anti-rollback, or authenticated-update development.
• Trusted applications or cryptographic services inside an HSM or secure coprocessor.
• Hardware/software co-design involving cryptographic accelerators, secure processors, or custom silicon.
• Multi-party authorization, quorum-controlled deployments, tamper-resistant audit mechanisms, or attestable policy systems.
• Secure or private storage systems based on hardware-protected keys.
• Experience sustaining high-assurance security software in production.

Benefits

• Base salary plus equity, performance-related bonuses for eligible employees, and benefits.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax FSA, dependent-care FSA, and commuter accounts.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Paid time off, company holidays, office closures, and paid sick or safe time.
• 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 and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Background checks are administered in accordance with applicable law.