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Software Engineer, Private Computing at OpenAI

OpenAI No longer available

Job Description

About the Team

The Private Computing team works across product, engineering, security, and safety to build advanced privacy products and infrastructure at OpenAI. Our mission is to provide world class security features to users so their private data remains private, even from OpenAI. We use technologies like confidential computing, trusted execution environments, and end to end encryption to ship product features across ChatGPT, the API, and our future consumer devices.

About the Role

We're looking for software engineers to design, build, and scale novel privacy features and infrastructure across ChatGPT, API, and future consumer devices.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:
  • Ship fast while balancing difficult trade offs in complex domains
  • Build core abstractions for trusted execution environments and end to end encryption
  • Build product features for private inference and storage across ChatGPT, API, and future consumer devices
  • Update build systems to increase trust and verifiability
  • Integrate with safety and integrity infrastructure
  • Operate systems at scale with high reliability, including an on call rotation
  • Collaborate with a diverse set of cross functional teams across product, engineering, security, safety, policy, and legal
You might thrive in this role if you:
  • Care deeply about user privacy and security
  • Have 5+ years of experience in professional software engineering
  • Have experience building and scaling confidential computing or encryption technologies in production environments
  • Have experience with Kubernetes and cloud orchestration systems
  • Take pride in building and operating scalable, reliable, secure systems
  • Can collaborate well and drive alignment in the face of difficult trade offs
  • Are comfortable with ambiguity and rapid change
About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

OpenAI's Affiramtive Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement. For additional information, please see our policy statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for U.S. based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non compliant, please submit a report through the provided form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via the link provided.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy.

At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

Typical mid-level pay: $133k for Software Developers nationally

National salary averages
Expected mid-level
$133k
Entry
Mid
Senior
Expected
$80k Market range (10th-90th percentile) $211k

Senior roles pay 64% more than entry—experience is well rewarded.

Strong candidate leverage

High demand and responsive wages. Negotiate confidently on all fronts.

Hiring leverage
Lean candidate
Wage leverage
Moderate
Mobility
Good mobility

Who this leverage applies to

Stronger for: All experience levels

Where to negotiate

Base salary
Sign-on bonus
Title / level
Remote flexibility
Scope & responsibility
Start date / PTO

Likely Possible Unlikely

Use competing offers and timing to your advantage.

Does this path compound?

Job Growth →
High churn
Growth, flat pay
🚀 Compound
Growth + pay upside
⚠️ Plateau
Limited growth
Specialize
Experts earn more
Pay Upside →
Growth + pay upside

Both the field and your earnings can grow significantly.

+16%
10yr growth
A bachelor's degree is typically expected.
115,200 openings projected annually—mostly replacing retirees and turnover.
Typical: Bachelor's degree

Good time to build expertise—demand will chase supply.

Labor data: BLS 2024