Software Engineer, Compute Foundations Systems

About the Team The Frontier Systems team at OpenAI builds, launches, and supports the largest supercomputers in the world that OpenAI uses for its most cutting edge model training. We take data center designs, turn them into real, working systems and build any software needed for running large-scale frontier model trainings. Our mission is to bring up, stabilize and keep these hyperscale supercomputers reliable and efficient during the training of the frontier models. About the Role We are looking for engineers to operate the next generation of compute clusters that power OpenAI’s frontier research. This role blends distributed systems engineering with hands-on infrastructure work on our largest datacenters. You will scale Kubernetes clusters to massive scale, automate bare-metal bring-up, and build the software layer that hides the complexity of a magnitude of nodes across multiple data centers. You will work at the intersection of hardware and software, where speed and reliability are critical. Expect to manage fast-moving operations, quickly diagnose and fix issues when things are on fire, and continuously raise the bar for automation and uptime. In this role, you will: Spin up and scale large Kubernetes clusters, including automation for provisioning, bootstrapping, and cluster lifecycle management Build software abstractions that unify multiple clusters and present a seamless interface to training workloads Own node bring-up from bare metal through firmware upgrades, ensuring fast, repeatable deployment at massive scale Improve operational metrics such as reducing cluster restart times (e.g., from hours to minutes) and accelerating firmware or OS upgrade cycles Integrate networking and hardware health systems to deliver end-to-end reliability across servers, switches, and data center infrastructure Develop monitoring and observability systems to detect issues early and keep clusters stable under extreme load You might thrive in this role if you: Have deep experience operating or scaling Kubernetes clusters or similar container orchestration systems in high-growth or hyperscale environments Bring strong programming or scripting skills (Python, Go, or similar) and familiarity with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation Are comfortable with bare-metal Linux environments, GPU hardware, and large-scale networking Enjoy solving fast-moving, high-impact operational problems and building automation to eliminate manual work Can balance careful engineering with the urgency of keeping mission-critical systems running Qualifications Experience as an infrastructure, systems, or distributed systems engineer in large-scale or high-availability environments Strong knowledge of Kubernetes internals, cluster scaling patterns, and containerized workloads Proficiency in cloud infrastructure concepts (compute, networking, storage, security) and in automating cluster or data center operations Bonus: background with GPU workloads, firmware management, or high-performance computing About OpenAI OpenAI 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, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement . Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security