Software Engineer, Database Systems at OpenAI

San Francisco, California, United States

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$255,000 – $405,000Compensation

Mid-level (3 to 4 years), Senior (5 to 8 years)Experience Level

Full TimeJob Type

UnknownVisa

Artificial Intelligence, TechnologyIndustries

Requirements

4+ years of relevant industry experience, with 2+ years leading large scale, complex projects or teams as an engineer or tech lead
Experience with distributed systems at scale, with a strong focus on performance, reliability, and scalability
Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across highly technical and cross-functional teams
Proficiency in a systems programming language such as C++ (strongly preferred)
Domain knowledge in areas such as databases, data systems, storage engines, indexing, and query processing (a plus but not required)
Significant experience building, scaling, and optimizing distributed systems at scale
Curiosity about database internals, storage engines, or low-latency query systems
Enjoyment of debugging challenging performance issues in complex, high-throughput systems
Rigorous thinking about scalability, correctness, and reliability
Thriving in fast-paced environments with high autonomy and impact

Responsibilities

Design, build, and operate high-performance distributed systems
Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks to scale infrastructure to the next order of magnitude
Define long-term technical direction and guide system evolution
Collaborate with product, engineering, and research teams to deliver scalable and reliable infrastructure
Dig deep into complex production issues across the stack
Contribute to incident response, postmortems, and best practices for system reliability
Contribute to the core database engine, driving improvements across ingestion, query execution, indexing, and storage
Partner with teams across OpenAI to unlock new product capabilities and help scale online database reliability and throughput

Skills

Key technologies and capabilities for this role

C++Distributed SystemsDatabase InternalsPerformance OptimizationQuery ExecutionIndexingStorage EnginesIngestionScalabilityReliability EngineeringIncident ResponseVector DatabasesRAG

Questions & Answers

Common questions about this position

What is the salary range for this Software Engineer position?

The salary range is $255K - $405K.

Is this role remote or does it require office work?

This information is not specified in the job description.

What skills and experience are required for this role?

Candidates need 4+ years of relevant industry experience, with 2+ years leading large-scale projects or teams, experience with distributed systems focusing on performance, reliability, and scalability, strong communication skills, and proficiency in C++ strongly preferred.

What is the team like at OpenAI's Database Systems?

The Database Systems team specializes in high-performance distributed databases, having built Rockset, which powers vector search, RAG, and core functionality across OpenAI's products and internal use cases.

What makes a candidate thrive in this Database Systems Engineer role?

Candidates thrive if they have significant experience building and scaling distributed systems, curiosity about database internals and low-latency systems, enjoy debugging performance issues, think rigorously about scalability and reliability, and thrive in fast-paced environments with high autonomy.

OpenAI

Develops safe and beneficial AI technologies

About OpenAI

OpenAI develops and deploys artificial intelligence technologies aimed at benefiting humanity. The company creates advanced AI models capable of performing various tasks, such as automating processes and enhancing creativity. OpenAI's products, like Sora, allow users to generate videos from text descriptions, showcasing the versatility of its AI applications. Unlike many competitors, OpenAI operates under a capped profit model, which limits the profits it can make and ensures that excess earnings are redistributed to maximize the social benefits of AI. This commitment to safety and ethical considerations is central to its mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence (AGI) serves all of humanity.

San Francisco, CaliforniaHeadquarters

2015Year Founded

$18,433.2MTotal Funding

LATE_VCCompany Stage

AI & Machine LearningIndustries

1,001-5,000Employees