Software Engineer, Database Systems
OpenAI, San Francisco, CA, United States
Join to apply for the
Software Engineer, Database Systems
role at
OpenAI
Join to apply for the
Software Engineer, Database Systems
role at
OpenAI
About The Team
The Database Systems team specializes in high-performance distributed databases. Our team built Rockset, the real-time search, analytics, and vector database that powers all vector search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) at OpenAI. In addition to retrieval, as an online database, Rockset powers core functionality across all of OpenAI's product lines and many critical internal use cases.
About The Team
The Database Systems team specializes in high-performance distributed databases. Our team built Rockset, the real-time search, analytics, and vector database that powers all vector search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) at OpenAI. In addition to retrieval, as an online database, Rockset powers core functionality across all of OpenAI's product lines and many critical internal use cases.
About The Role
We are looking for engineers passionate about distributed systems, close-to-the-metal performance optimization (our core engine is written in C++), and building scalable database infrastructure from the ground up. As an engineer on the Database Systems team, you'll contribute to the core database engine, driving improvements across ingestion, query execution, indexing, and storage. You'll partner with teams across OpenAI to unlock new product capabilities and help scale online database reliability and throughput as usage grows by orders of magnitude.
In This Role You Will
Design, build, and operate high-performance distributed systems
Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks to scale infrastructure to the next order of magnitude
Define long-term technical direction and guide system evolution
Collaborate with product, engineering, and research teams to deliver scalable and reliable infrastructure
Dig deep into complex production issues across the stack
Contribute to incident response, postmortems, and best practices for system reliability
You Might Thrive In This Role If You
Have significant experience building, scaling, and optimizing distributed systems at scale
Are curious about database internals, storage engines, or low-latency query systems
Enjoy debugging challenging performance issues in complex, high-throughput systems
Have experience operating production clusters at scale (e.g., Kubernetes or other orchestration systems)
Think rigorously about scalability, correctness, and reliability
Thrive in fast-paced environments with high autonomy and impact
Qualifications
4+ years of relevant industry experience, with 2+ years leading large scale, complex projects or teams as an engineer or tech lead
Experience with distributed systems at scale, with a strong focus on performance, reliability, and scalability
Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across highly technical and cross-functional teams
Proficiency in a systems programming language such as C++ (our core engine is written in C++) is strongly preferred
Fluency in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) and IaC tools (Terraform or similar)
Experience with Linux systems, CI/CD pipelines, and modern observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, etc.)
Domain knowledge in areas such as databases, data systems, storage engines, indexing, and query processing is a plus but not required
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.
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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 obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.
Compensation Range: $255K - $405K
Seniority level
Seniority level Mid-Senior level
Employment type
Employment type Full-time
Job function
Job function Engineering and Information Technology
Industries Research Services
Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at OpenAI by 2x
Sign in to set job alerts for “Software Engineer” roles.
Software Engineer, Infrastructure, Early Career
San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$230,000.00 4 months ago
Full-Stack Software Engineer (Jr/Mid level)
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
Software Development Engineer I - Frontend & Mobile
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$176,000.00 3 months ago
San Francisco, CA $160,000.00-$200,000.00 2 months ago
San Francisco, CA $120,000.00-$190,000.00 9 months ago
San Francisco, CA $130,000.00-$140,000.00 6 days ago
Software Engineer, AI Intern (Summer 2026)
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
San Francisco, CA $125,000.00-$175,000.00 2 months ago
Software Engineer, AI Intern (Winter 2026)
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
Software Engineer, Frontend (All Levels)
San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$220,000.00 4 days ago
San Francisco, CA $163,200.00-$223,200.00 5 days ago
San Francisco, CA $140,000.00-$280,000.00 9 months ago
San Francisco, CA $155,000.00-$339,500.00 5 days ago
San Francisco, CA $120,000.00-$200,000.00 2 years ago
San Francisco, CA $165,000.00-$165,000.00 2 years ago
San Francisco, CA $130,000.00-$240,000.00 5 days ago
San Francisco, CA $190,000.00-$250,000.00 5 days ago
Alameda, CA $130,000.00-$160,000.00 2 months ago
We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.
#J-18808-Ljbffr
Software Engineer, Database Systems
role at
OpenAI
Join to apply for the
Software Engineer, Database Systems
role at
OpenAI
About The Team
The Database Systems team specializes in high-performance distributed databases. Our team built Rockset, the real-time search, analytics, and vector database that powers all vector search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) at OpenAI. In addition to retrieval, as an online database, Rockset powers core functionality across all of OpenAI's product lines and many critical internal use cases.
About The Team
The Database Systems team specializes in high-performance distributed databases. Our team built Rockset, the real-time search, analytics, and vector database that powers all vector search and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) at OpenAI. In addition to retrieval, as an online database, Rockset powers core functionality across all of OpenAI's product lines and many critical internal use cases.
About The Role
We are looking for engineers passionate about distributed systems, close-to-the-metal performance optimization (our core engine is written in C++), and building scalable database infrastructure from the ground up. As an engineer on the Database Systems team, you'll contribute to the core database engine, driving improvements across ingestion, query execution, indexing, and storage. You'll partner with teams across OpenAI to unlock new product capabilities and help scale online database reliability and throughput as usage grows by orders of magnitude.
In This Role You Will
Design, build, and operate high-performance distributed systems
Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks to scale infrastructure to the next order of magnitude
Define long-term technical direction and guide system evolution
Collaborate with product, engineering, and research teams to deliver scalable and reliable infrastructure
Dig deep into complex production issues across the stack
Contribute to incident response, postmortems, and best practices for system reliability
You Might Thrive In This Role If You
Have significant experience building, scaling, and optimizing distributed systems at scale
Are curious about database internals, storage engines, or low-latency query systems
Enjoy debugging challenging performance issues in complex, high-throughput systems
Have experience operating production clusters at scale (e.g., Kubernetes or other orchestration systems)
Think rigorously about scalability, correctness, and reliability
Thrive in fast-paced environments with high autonomy and impact
Qualifications
4+ years of relevant industry experience, with 2+ years leading large scale, complex projects or teams as an engineer or tech lead
Experience with distributed systems at scale, with a strong focus on performance, reliability, and scalability
Strong communication skills and ability to collaborate across highly technical and cross-functional teams
Proficiency in a systems programming language such as C++ (our core engine is written in C++) is strongly preferred
Fluency in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) and IaC tools (Terraform or similar)
Experience with Linux systems, CI/CD pipelines, and modern observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, etc.)
Domain knowledge in areas such as databases, data systems, storage engines, indexing, and query processing is a plus but not required
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.
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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 obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.
Compensation Range: $255K - $405K
Seniority level
Seniority level Mid-Senior level
Employment type
Employment type Full-time
Job function
Job function Engineering and Information Technology
Industries Research Services
Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at OpenAI by 2x
Sign in to set job alerts for “Software Engineer” roles.
Software Engineer, Infrastructure, Early Career
San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$230,000.00 4 months ago
Full-Stack Software Engineer (Jr/Mid level)
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
Software Development Engineer I - Frontend & Mobile
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$176,000.00 3 months ago
San Francisco, CA $160,000.00-$200,000.00 2 months ago
San Francisco, CA $120,000.00-$190,000.00 9 months ago
San Francisco, CA $130,000.00-$140,000.00 6 days ago
Software Engineer, AI Intern (Summer 2026)
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
San Francisco, CA $125,000.00-$175,000.00 2 months ago
Software Engineer, AI Intern (Winter 2026)
San Francisco, CA $57.00-$61.00 2 weeks ago
Software Engineer, Frontend (All Levels)
San Francisco, CA $150,000.00-$220,000.00 4 days ago
San Francisco, CA $163,200.00-$223,200.00 5 days ago
San Francisco, CA $140,000.00-$280,000.00 9 months ago
San Francisco, CA $155,000.00-$339,500.00 5 days ago
San Francisco, CA $120,000.00-$200,000.00 2 years ago
San Francisco, CA $165,000.00-$165,000.00 2 years ago
San Francisco, CA $130,000.00-$240,000.00 5 days ago
San Francisco, CA $190,000.00-$250,000.00 5 days ago
Alameda, CA $130,000.00-$160,000.00 2 months ago
We’re unlocking community knowledge in a new way. Experts add insights directly into each article, started with the help of AI.
#J-18808-Ljbffr