Software Engineer, Online Storage

About the TeamWe are the Online Storage team powering ChatGPT, Sora, and the OpenAI APIs. We’re a growing team set up to own the databases and online‑storage infrastructure that serve all our products.About the RoleAs OpenAI scales, we’re seeking experienced, problem‑solving engineers to build robust, high‑performance, and scalable database systems. Our ability to rapidly iterate on products while ensuring reliability and speed is key to our success.You’ll work in a fast‑paced, collaborative environment, building systems that serve hundreds of millions of users globally, with a strong emphasis on safety, reliability, and performance.We’re hiring skilled software engineers to join the Online Storage team. You’ll help design and build a large‑scale database, collaborate with various product teams to scale it to meet their needs, and own operational excellence by defining SLAs and KPIs that directly satisfy stakeholder expectations. This is a critical role for engineers who thrive on solving complex, large‑scale challenges and are passionate about building resilient systems that perform under load. In this role, you will:Design and build highly scalable, reliable, and performant databaseDesign and build highly simple and intuitive APIs for the underlying databaseAnalyze and resolve performance and scalability bottlenecks to improve overall system efficiencyDebug, instrument, and fix system issues — from pinpointing root causes to delivering long-term solutionsDefine technical strategy and guide the development of robust infrastructure that supports high-scale production systems and evolving business needsCollaborate closely with product teams to deeply understand requirements and deliver impactful solutionsBoost engineering productivity by building intuitive tools and systems that empower fellow developersOwn the reliability of the systems you build, including participating in an on-call rotation to address critical incidentsYou might thrive in this role if you:Have experience building (and rebuilding) production systems to support new product capabilities and growing scaleCare deeply about the end-user experience and take pride in solving real customer needsEmbrace a humble, collaborative mindset and go the extra mile to support your teammates and the broader missionOwn problems end-to-end — you're comfortable learning on the fly to fill gaps and get things doneBuild internal tools that improve workflows when off-the-shelf solutions fall shortHave hands-on experience with distributed systems such as data storage, caching, search, or other backend infrastructure componentsPrioritize the reliability, scalability, and performance of large-scale systemsThrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments and enjoy iterating rapidly on product and research initiativesQualifications:4+ years of industry experience, including 2+ years leading large-scale, complex projects or technical initiatives as an engineer or tech leadStrong passion for building distributed systems at scale, with a focus on reliability, scalability, security, and continuous improvementExpertise in systems programming, with hands-on experience in multi-threading and concurrency; proficiency in C++ and/or Python is highly preferredPreferably, domain experience in areas such as databases, large-scale data systems, storage, caching, search, or other core components of distributed infrastructureExcellent communication skills, with the ability to build consensus across diverse technical and non-technical stakeholders.About OpenAIOpenAI 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, a ... (truncated, view full listing at source)