Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security

Details

About the Team

Security is at the foundation of OpenAI’s mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Security team protects OpenAI’s technology, people, and products. The team is technical in what it builds and operational in how it executes, supporting every product and research effort at OpenAI.

About the role

OpenAI is seeking a Security Software Engineer to join the Infrastructure Security (InfraSec) team. InfraSec safeguards the core of OpenAI’s research and production environments — GPU supercomputing clusters, multi-cloud infrastructure, datacenters, networking, storage, and the critical services that power frontier AI models. The team’s charter spans bare-metal hardware and firmware to Kubernetes clusters, service meshes, and data pathways that carry highly sensitive model weights and user data.

As a Security Software Engineer you will design and build foundational services such as authentication systems, egress/ingress proxies, access brokers, and key management platforms that demand high reliability, scalability, and software craftsmanship. These systems form the security backbone of a supercomputing environment and must remain robust at scale and under adversarial pressure.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement production-grade security services (auth services, access brokers, secure proxies, key-management infrastructure) across hardware, OS, Kubernetes, networks, and CI/CD.
• Partner with infrastructure and research engineers to embed security into high-performance compute clusters to enable rapid model training and deployment without compromising protection.
• Develop automation and detection tooling to continuously identify and mitigate risks in large-scale cloud and on-prem environments.
• Drive high-impact initiatives such as line-speed encryption, machine identity, and network isolation, raising the security bar for emerging AI workloads.
• Lead or participate in design reviews and threat models to ensure new systems launch with strong security foundations and operational excellence.

Requirements / Qualifications

• Strong software engineering skills in one or more of: Python, Go, Rust, or C/C++ with experience shipping and operating high-reliability distributed services.
• Experience building or operating critical security infrastructure (auth services, service-to-service proxies, certificate/key-management systems).
• Deep understanding of security principles, best practices, and common vulnerabilities.
• Expertise securing large-scale cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP), including multi-cloud networks and cloud-agnostic system design.
• Familiarity with container and orchestration security (Kubernetes, service meshes) and modern authentication/authorization standards (OIDC, mTLS, SPIFFE/SPIRE).
• Proactive mindset: ability to identify and remediate security gaps via automation and tooling.
• Experience with threat modeling, designing for operational excellence, and delivering scalable solutions across infrastructure.
• Strong analytical and communication skills to convey complex security concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Technologies & topics mentioned

Python, Go, Rust, C/C++, authentication systems, access brokers, ingress/egress proxies, key-management platforms, certificate management, Kubernetes, service meshes, OIDC, mTLS, SPIFFE/SPIRE, Azure, AWS, GCP, bare-metal and firmware, GPU supercomputing clusters, CI/CD, line-speed encryption, machine identity, network isolation, automation and detection tooling, threat modeling.

Benefits

The base pay may vary with market location, skills, and experience. Total compensation can include equity and performance-related bonus(es). Benefits include medical/dental/vision, HSA contributions, FSA accounts, 401(k) with match, paid parental and caregiver leave, paid time off, holidays, mental health support, basic life and disability coverage, annual learning stipend, meal benefits in offices, relocation support for eligible employees, and additional fringe benefits. Background checks and reasonable accommodations are provided as described in the posting.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company focused on ensuring general-purpose AI benefits all of humanity. The company values diverse perspectives and is an equal opportunity employer. Additional policies and applicant privacy details are provided in the original posting.