← All roles

Software Engineer, Developer Productivity - Inference Runtime

OpenAI· Scaling
Apply on company site
San Francisco$230k - $385kFull-timePosted 5mo ago

About the role

OpenAI is hiring a Developer Productivity engineer focused on the Inference Runtime stack to scale engineering systems, safeguards, and developer workflows for model launches, inference optimizations, cloud provider integrations, and large-scale deployments.

Responsibilities

  • Improve systems that ensure inference engine releases are correct, performant, and regression-free by evolving tooling and infrastructure for deploy gate validation
  • Bring rigor to release, validation, branching, and deployment processes across the inference stack
  • Improve canary, async, and large-scale validation workflows for inference systems
  • Harden CI, testing, and validation infrastructure so failures are actionable and trustworthy
  • Reduce noisy or flaky failures caused by infrastructure instability, GPU scheduling, or test environment issues
  • Build automation for failure triage, ownership detection, debugging, and escalation
  • Partner closely with inference teams, research developer productivity, engine acceleration, and infrastructure teams to improve release quality and rollout safety
  • Reduce developer friction in testing, debugging, and release workflows so engineers can move faster with confidence

Qualifications

  • Strong experience with CI/CD systems, testing infrastructure, release tooling, developer productivity, or large-scale build and validation systems
  • Excitement for high-impact infrastructure where small regressions in correctness, latency, or reliability affect production systems
  • Care about building systems engineers can trust, not just systems that technically function
  • Strong developer empathy and enjoy improving workflows, reducing friction, and making engineers more effective
  • High ownership and proactive problem identification, driving improvements, and following issues through resolution
  • Comfort working in Python-heavy environments and debugging complex distributed systems
  • Enjoy building automation that reduces manual triage, improves signal quality, and scales operational effectiveness
  • Comfort operating in ambiguous areas without a fully predefined roadmap
  • Enjoy partnering with engineers to understand workflows, pain points, and operational challenges
  • Pragmatic, collaborative, and motivated by helping teams move faster with more confidence
  • Excited to learn about large-scale inference systems, even if not previously specialized in inference
  • Python experience highly relevant; C++ helpful but not required

Skills

Required:CI/CD systemsTesting infrastructureRelease toolingPythonDistributed systems debugging

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
  • 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 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 Oct 22, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About OpenAI

ai-infrastructure-and-developmentliquid-ai-recruiting-targetllmsetter-30setter-30-2026-q1speech-to-texttext-to-speechvoice-ai-stack
Company profileWebsite

More open roles at OpenAI