OpenAI

Software Engineer, Private Computing

OpenAI · San Francisco, CA
San Francisco, CA $230K–$385K Posted 2026-08-20
Salary
$230K–$385K
Type
Full-time
Experience
5+ yr

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.

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

Workplace & Location

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We follow a hybrid model with 4 days a week in the office and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

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.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

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 US-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 this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. 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 this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf

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.

Kubernetes
$110K — 10th pctl $270K — 90th pctl
This role’s midpoint $307K vs. market median $180K for Engineering roles
+70%
above median
Based on 10,000+ Engineering roles with disclosed salary ranges tracked on NewJob.
OpenAI

OpenAI

Artificial Intelligence · Private · San Francisco, USA

Stage & Valuation
Private · $300B
Key Investors
Microsoft, SoftBank, NVIDIA
Open roles on NewJob
Most hiring in
Engineering (271) · Operations (51) · Sales (51)
OpenAI develops and deploys advanced artificial intelligence models, including large language models and generative AI systems, aimed at benefiting all of humanity. Their core products include ChatGPT and foundational models for developers and enterprises.
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