Software Engineer, Silicon Design Methodology

Details

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for advanced AI workloads. The team is developing future generations of AI-native silicon and tightly integrated systems to power OpenAI’s supercomputing platform.

The role focuses on building design methodologies, software abstractions, and infrastructure that enable a small silicon team to develop complex chips rapidly and with high confidence. You will turn evolving architecture and design needs into reusable tools and workflows that improve iteration speed and quality, and apply those tools to help construct custom silicon.

You will work closely across architecture, design, verification, performance modeling, and systems software.

Responsibilities

• Develop and scale design methodologies for rapid first-party chip development and apply them to construct complex custom chips.
• Create abstractions that represent hardware structures, configurations, experiments, and results consistently across tools.
• Automate high-value engineering workflows and improve their reproducibility, observability, testability, and ease of use.
• Partner with architects, RTL designers, verification engineers, compiler engineers, and systems software engineers to gather requirements and implement solutions.
• Use methodology and tooling to identify design risks early, accelerate iteration, and improve confidence in performance and implementation tradeoffs.
• Contribute across multiple aspects of software and hardware development as the first-party silicon program and its development methodology evolve.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering skills in C++, Python, Rust, or similar systems-oriented languages.
• Experience building engineering infrastructure, developer tools, simulation frameworks, EDA/CAD tooling, compilers, or verification systems.
• Understanding of digital design and computer architecture sufficient to translate silicon-development needs into useful software abstractions.
• Experience integrating RTL and IP components into an SoC.
• Experience designing APIs, object models, or data models for complex systems, with a focus on extensibility, correctness, and usability.
• Comfort automating multi-stage workflows, building regression systems, and improving reproducibility across teams.
• Ability to reason across architecture, design, verification, performance modeling, and software boundaries.
• Ability to partner closely with domain experts and turn loosely defined engineering needs into durable tools and methodologies.
• Ability to work in rapidly evolving environments while balancing immediate program needs with long-term platform quality.
• Candidates may need to meet certain legal status requirements under U.S. export control laws and regulations.

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 provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Background checks are administered in accordance with applicable law.

Benefits

• 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 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.
• Equity, performance-related bonuses for eligible employees, charitable donation matching, and wellness stipends may also be provided.