Fullstack Software Engineer (Privacy Engineering)

Location: San Francisco, United States

Salary: $347K–$385K base pay annually, plus equity, eligible performance-related bonuses, and benefits.

Company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company developing and safely deploying general-purpose artificial intelligence systems.

What you will do

• Design, build, and operate backend systems and workflow tooling for the full lifecycle of lawful data access requests, including intake, scoping, authorized retrieval, review, preparation, and audit.
• Build reliable data pipelines and interfaces across products and data stores so authorized teams can locate and handle records accurately and reproducibly.
• Implement least-privilege access, approval gates, provenance, audit trails, data minimization, and safe failure modes for sensitive workflows.
• Partner with Legal and Legal Operations to translate legal and operational requirements into technical designs and operator experiences.
• Identify responsible automation opportunities while preserving human review, judgment, and accountability.
• Own production systems through testing, observability, incident response, documentation, reliability improvements, and architectural roadmap work.

Requirements

• Experience building or operating systems for lawful data access requests, including understanding of the legal-process lifecycle, privacy and security constraints, auditability requirements, and operational sensitivities.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals and experience building production services or data-intensive systems.
• Ability to reason carefully about correctness, authorization, security, and privacy when working with sensitive data.
• Track record of turning ambiguous requirements into pragmatic plans and communicating technical tradeoffs clearly.
• End-to-end ownership, including operating built systems, and comfort learning unfamiliar products and domains.
• Care for operator experience and motivation to make complex workflows safer, clearer, and more efficient.
• Experience collaborating across Engineering, Legal, Operations, Privacy, and Security stakeholders.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Health and dependent-care flexible spending accounts, commuter benefits, life and disability coverage, and a 401(k) plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, caregiver, sick, and safe leave, flexible paid time off for exempt employees, and paid company holidays and office closures.
• Mental health and wellness support, an annual learning and development stipend, office meals, and eligible meal delivery credits.
• Relocation support is available for eligible employees.
• Work emphasizes safety, human needs, privacy, security, and collaboration across disciplines.

Hiring process

• Additional benefits details are provided during the hiring process.
• Background checks are administered in accordance with applicable law.