Principal Software Engineer, B2B Engineering

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to design and scale the systems that power their developer and enterprise-facing products, leading the architecture of backend services and platform capabilities.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and scale the backend services, APIs, and infrastructure that power OpenAI’s developer and enterprise products
• Lead the architecture of distributed systems, databases, and data pipelines that support large-scale, high-reliability production workloads
• Own major platform capabilities end-to-end, from early technical strategy and design through implementation, launch, and long-term operation
• Shape the design of our APIs with care and intentionality, treating API interfaces as core product surfaces and driving a high-quality developer experience
• Build secure, reliable, and compliant systems that meet the needs of both enterprise and developer use cases
• Partner closely with product, research, design, infrastructure, and forward-deployed engineering teams to bring new capabilities into production
• Drive technical direction across complex problem spaces, making sound architectural tradeoffs that balance speed, quality, and long-term maintainability
• Improve engineering velocity by building internal tooling, platform abstractions, and systems that increase leverage across the broader organization
• Raise the bar for engineering quality, system design, operational excellence, and technical decision-making across teams
• Help identify and solve ambiguous, high-impact technical problems that cut across multiple systems and stakeholders

Requirements:

• Significant experience building, scaling, and evolving production backend systems in fast-moving environments
• Deep expertise in software engineering fundamentals, distributed systems, and API design
• Proficient in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, or TypeScript
• Track record of leading complex technical initiatives and driving architecture across teams or critical product areas
• Care deeply about reliability, safety, security, and performance in production environments
• Strong product instincts and a high bar for developer experience and interface design
• Comfortable working in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and can create clarity where little exists
• Own problems end-to-end and are eager to learn whatever is needed to solve them
• Build thoughtfully, move with urgency, and collaborate effectively across disciplines
• Influence technical direction through strong judgment, clear communication, and consistently high-quality execution
• Experience as a founder or early engineer at a startup, or have built products and platforms from scratch