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Software Engineer, Foundations Search

OpenAI· Research
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San Francisco$295k - $555kFull-timePosted 6mo ago

About the role

Software Engineer focused on building and scaling retrieval systems within the Foundations Search team to enable models to retrieve and act on the right information at the right time, across OpenAI products and research.

Responsibilities

  • Build and scale retrieval infrastructure across indexing, serving, and query execution.
  • Develop low-latency, high-throughput systems for real-time model interaction.
  • Partner with research to productionize embedding and retrieval techniques.
  • Support dense, sparse, and hybrid retrieval pipelines.
  • Own system performance, reliability, and observability at scale.
  • Collaborate across Pretraining, Inference, and Product teams to integrate retrieval end-to-end.
  • Contribute to model - system interfaces for agentic workflows.

Qualifications

  • Experience building and scaling distributed systems.
  • Background in search, retrieval, or indexing systems.
  • Familiarity with embedding-based or ML-powered systems.
  • Experience with performance optimization and production reliability.
  • Ability to work across ML and systems boundaries.
  • First-principles thinking in ambiguous problem spaces.

Skills

Required:Distributed systemsSearch / retrieval / indexing
Nice to have:Embedding-based / ML-powered systems

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
  • Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
  • 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
  • Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
  • Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
  • 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time
  • Mental health and wellness support
  • Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
  • Annual learning and development stipend
  • Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
  • Relocation support for eligible employees
  • Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends
Last updated Sep 10, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About OpenAI

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Company profileWebsite

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