Software Engineer, Accelerators

Responsibilities

• Prototype and enable OpenAI's AI software stack on new, exploratory accelerator platforms.
• Optimize large-scale model performance (LLMs, recommender systems, distributed AI workloads) for diverse hardware environments.
• Develop kernels, sharding mechanisms, and system scaling strategies tailored to emerging accelerators.
• Collaborate on optimizations at the model code level (e.g., PyTorch) and below to enhance performance on non-traditional hardware.
• Perform system-level performance modeling, debug bottlenecks, and drive end-to-end optimization.
• Work with hardware teams and vendors to evaluate alternatives to existing platforms and adapt the software stack to their architectures.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience working on AI infrastructure, including kernels, systems, or hardware-software co-design.
• Hands-on experience with accelerator platforms for AI at data center scale (e.g., TPUs, custom silicon, exploratory architectures).
• Strong understanding of kernels, sharding, runtime systems, or distributed scaling techniques.
• Familiarity with optimizing LLMs, CNNs, or recommender models for hardware efficiency.
• Experience with performance modeling, system debugging, and software stack adaptation for novel architectures.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience enabling data center-scale AI hardware.
• Exposure to mobile accelerators.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity in early hardware bring-up phases.

Benefits

• Competitive salary ($295K – $380K) and generous equity.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental leave and flexible PTO.
• Daily meals in our offices and meal delivery credits.
• Annual learning and development stipend.

About the Company

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.