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Software Engineer, Model Runtime

OpenAI· Scaling
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Hybrid (San Francisco)$266k - $445k + equity + bonusFull-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

Build and optimize the model runtime within OpenAI’s inference engine to execute frontier models at scale on custom silicon, shaping how models map onto the hardware and how production performance is achieved.

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement the LLM inference runtime for frontier models running on custom silicon.
  • Build scheduling, continuous batching, memory management, KV-cache management, and execution orchestration for high-performance inference.
  • Develop distributed execution strategies across chips, hosts, and racks, including model partitioning, communication, and synchronization.
  • Optimize end-to-end latency, throughput, memory efficiency, and hardware utilization across diverse model architectures and serving workloads.
  • Partner with kernel, compiler, architecture, and silicon teams to co-design interfaces and remove performance bottlenecks across the stack.
  • Enable new model features, execution patterns, numerical formats, and hardware capabilities in a reliable production runtime.
  • Create profiling, observability, benchmarking, and performance-modeling tools that make runtime behavior measurable and actionable.
  • Debug complex correctness, performance, and reliability issues spanning model code, runtime software, communication layers, and hardware.
  • Turn workload insights into clear requirements for future generations of silicon and system architecture.

Qualifications

  • Have strong systems programming experience in C++, Rust, Python, or comparable performance-oriented environments.
  • Have built or optimized runtimes, distributed systems, compilers, kernels, model-serving infrastructure, or adjacent systems software.
  • Understand modern LLM inference, including prefill and decode behavior, batching, KV-cache tradeoffs, and model parallelism.
  • Can reason quantitatively about latency, throughput, compute intensity, memory bandwidth, communication, and utilization.
  • Are comfortable profiling and debugging performance across multiple layers of a hardware-software stack.
  • Can design clean abstractions while retaining the low-level control needed to extract performance from specialized hardware.
  • Work effectively across model, systems, compiler, kernel, and hardware teams to drive ambiguous technical problems to closure.
  • Care about production quality, including correctness, observability, reliability, maintainability, and graceful behavior at scale.

Skills

Required:Systems programmingRuntime and distributed systemsLLM inference understandingPerformance profiling & 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 (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, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends
Last updated Sep 17, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About OpenAI

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Company profileWebsite

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