Software Engineer, Observability

at OpenAI

📍 San Francisco, United States

USD 255,000-405,000 per year

MIDDLE

✅ On-site

✅ Relocation

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI @ 3 AWS @ 3 Debugging @ 3 Distributed Systems @ 3 Kubernetes @ 3 Networking @ 6 Observability @ 1 OpenTelemetry @ 1 Prometheus @ 1

Details

Join the Applied Engineering team to build observability products that make OpenAI's production systems reliable, performant, and observable. The team works across research, engineering, product, and design to bring OpenAI's technology safely to consumers and businesses.

The observability product spans scalable infrastructure and an AI-powered user interface. Its systems ingest over petabytes of logs and billions of time-series metrics across the fleet, with intelligent tools for summarizing SEVs, generating dashboards, and helping engineers debug through notebook-like interfaces. Software engineers are being hired across infrastructure, backend, and product engineering.

Responsibilities

Own core observability infrastructure, including distributed logging, time-series, and trace storage.
Build AI-native tools that help engineers detect, understand, and resolve issues autonomously.
Contribute to user interface experiences such as dashboards, notebooking, and interactive debugging.
Collaborate with engineers, researchers, user operations, and other teams across the company to build the next generation of observability products.

Requirements

Experience operating large-scale distributed systems in production, especially logging systems or time-series databases.
Ability to thrive in ambiguous environments and solve unscoped problems.
Full-stack capabilities or product sensibilities, with enthusiasm for building tools that people use.
Strong fundamentals in systems, networking, and cloud infrastructure.
Experience with Kubernetes and AWS.
Bonus: Experience building or contributing to observability systems such as Prometheus or OpenTelemetry.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The company is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Background checks are administered in accordance with applicable law.

Benefits

Equity and performance-related bonuses for eligible employees.
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, 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 meals in offices and eligible meal delivery credits.
Relocation support for eligible employees.
Additional benefits may include charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.