About this opportunity
OpenAI lists this Software Engineer, Monetization Delivery opportunity in san francisco, California. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
Location
San Francisco
Employment Type
Full time
Department
Applied AI
Compensation
$255K – $405K • Offers Equity
The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non‑exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance‑related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.
Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
Pre‑tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
401(k) retirement plan with employer match
Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non‑birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non‑exempt employees
13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
Mental health and wellness support
Employer‑paid basic life and disability coverage
Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
Relocation support for eligible employees
Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.
More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.
This role is at‑will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.
About the Team
The Monetization team is a new cross‑functional group working across engineering, product, research, and design to build the foundational systems that will help OpenAI scale access to intelligence responsibly. Our mission is to develop user‑first, privacy‑preserving monetization products—including next‑generation ads experiences—that strengthen user trust, unlock economic opportunity, and support OpenAI’s long‑term innovation.
Monetization plays a critical role in enabling OpenAI to continue pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities while ensuring the benefits of AGI are broadly shared. We believe monetization must be aligned with user value, uphold rigorous privacy and safety standards, and sustain a healthy ecosystem of developers and businesses.
This team operates in a greenfield environment and moves quickly through prototyping, experimentation, and iterative deployment. We partner closely with Product, Design, and Research to bring research breakthroughs into real‑world systems at global scale.
About the Role
We’re looking for an experienced Software Engineer to help build the core infrastructure behind OpenAI’s monetization and ads systems. In this foundational role, you’ll architect and implement distributed systems that power OpenAI’s monetization stack—focusing on reliability, performance, privacy, and large‑scale operation.
You’ll work across backend, systems, and platform layers to define and implement 0→1 infrastructure, partnering closely with Product, Design, and Research to shape the future of monetized AI experiences. Your work will enable both internal and external teams to build on safe, scalable, and robust monetization primitives.
This role is exclusively based in our San Francisco HQ. We offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will:
Design and build the foundational backend and infrastructure powering OpenAI’s monetization and ads systems
Architect large‑scale distributed systems that meet strict requirements for reliability, privacy, security, and performance
Develop APIs, infrastructure services, and internal platforms that support ads creation, delivery, measurement, and optimization
Work closely with Product, Research, and Design to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions
Drive 0→1 infra development through rapid prototyping, experimentation, and iterative improvements
Contribute to the long‑term technical strategy and roadmap for the monetization infra stack
Ensure high engineering rigor through excellent testing, documentation, observability, and operational best practices
Build for safety, privacy, fairness, and policy alignment from first principles
Collaborate across engineering orgs to ensure the infra layer is flexible, performant, and resilient
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have 10+ years of experience building and operating large‑scale distributed systems
Have experience designing mission‑critical systems with demanding reliability, performance, and correctness requirements
Think in systems—architecture, data flows, operational concerns, observability, and long‑term maintainability
Are comfortable defining technical direction in ambiguous 0→1 environments
Enjoy working cross‑functionally to shape product requirements and system capabilities
Communicate clearly, reason holistically, and make decisions grounded in user needs and long‑term system health
Bonus: Experience in ads systems, marketplaces, AI/ML infra, or other monetization‑intensive domains
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.
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 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.
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Worksite address
san francisco, CA, 94199, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.