← All roles

Software Engineer, Core Network Engineering

OpenAI· Scaling
Apply on company site
San Francisco$230k - $342kFull-timePosted 5mo ago

About the role

Engineer to design, build, and operate the networking foundation behind OpenAI’s frontier AI systems, spanning host networking, datacenter fabrics, and global WAN infrastructure with a focus on high-performance, low-latency networking for large-scale AI training and inference.

Responsibilities

  • Design, build, and operate networking systems that support large-scale AI training and inference infrastructure
  • Improve performance, reliability, and scalability across host networking, datacenter fabrics, and WAN systems
  • Develop automation for provisioning, configuration management, validation, upgrades, and lifecycle management of networking infrastructure
  • Build tooling and observability systems for network health, performance analysis, debugging, and automated remediation
  • Optimize network performance across technologies such as RDMA, RoCE, InfiniBand, Ethernet, and high-performance GPU interconnects
  • Define and operationalize networking protocols, readiness criteria, and continuous validation systems
  • Partner closely with compute, storage, hardware, and infrastructure teams to ensure networking scales predictably with fleet growth
  • Contribute to architecture decisions around topology design, capacity planning, failure domains, and network reliability
  • Diagnose complex distributed systems and networking issues across large heterogeneous compute environments

Qualifications

  • Experience building or operating large-scale networking or distributed systems infrastructure
  • Comfortable working close to the hardware/software boundary
  • Experience with Linux networking, kernel systems, NICs, RDMA, or performance-sensitive infrastructure software
  • Experience with high-performance networking technologies such as InfiniBand, RoCE, DPDK, or large-scale Ethernet fabrics
  • Experience with datacenter networking, WAN systems, or host networking stacks
  • Enjoy debugging complex systems and performance bottlenecks across multiple layers of the stack
  • Willingness to write production software in languages such as C++, Python, or Go
  • Strong systems fundamentals across networking, operating systems, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering
  • Motivation to build infrastructure that directly accelerates frontier AI research and deployment

Skills

Required:Networking systems design and operationLinux networking and kernel systemsRDMA / RoCE / InfiniBandDatacenter networking and WANProgramming in C++, Python, or Go

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 offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
  • Relocation support for eligible employees
  • Additional taxable fringe benefits (e.g., charitable donation matching and wellness stipends)
Last updated Jul 16, 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