Software Engineer, Productivity - Model Performance

Details

We’re hiring software engineers to make OpenAI’s Model Performance teams more productive. These teams work on the systems, tooling, and infrastructure that help improve model performance across OpenAI’s training and inference workloads at frontier scale.

The role is for an autonomous, high-ownership developer productivity engineer focused on helping other engineers move faster, safer, and with more confidence. It sits within OpenAI’s Model Performance organization and contributes to developer infrastructure, CI systems, testing workflows, tooling, and broader performance infrastructure efforts, with an opportunity to contribute to the Triton project.

Responsibilities

• Improve development workflows for engineers working on model performance infrastructure.
• Design and improve CI/CD, release, validation, and testing pipelines.
• Build and maintain tools that improve reliability, iteration speed, and engineering confidence.
• Partner closely with engineers to identify friction in testing, debugging, deployment, and development workflows.
• Contribute to infrastructure efforts supporting performance-critical training and inference systems.
• Improve developer experience across Python-heavy codebases and performance-oriented infrastructure.
• Work in a high-context, ambiguous environment where ownership and good judgment matter.

Requirements

• Strong experience with CI/CD, developer infrastructure, testing systems, tooling, or build and release workflows.
• Strong Python skills and an interest in building reliable, scalable developer tools and infrastructure.
• Experience improving large-scale engineering workflows, especially CI reliability, test infrastructure, and debugging velocity.
• Highly collaborative, empathetic, and comfortable partnering deeply with technical teams.
• Self-directed and comfortable operating with ambiguity.
• Motivation to enable other engineers and help them do their best work.
• Direct inference or model performance experience is not required, but enthusiasm for learning the domain is important.
• Experience in the PyTorch ecosystem is highly relevant.
• Experience with C++ or Rust is a nice-to-have, but not required.
• Pragmatic approach to balancing high standards with forward progress.
• Ability to identify and address underlying systems behind repeated friction, such as slow tests, flaky CI, brittle release processes, painful debugging, and unclear validation.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of legally protected characteristics. Background checks and reasonable accommodations are handled in accordance with applicable law.

Benefits

• Base salary of $230,000–$385,000 USD, plus 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, paid company holidays, office closures, and paid sick or safe time as required by law.
• 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 taxable fringe benefits may include charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.