Software Engineer, Core Services
- Location
- San Francisco, CA · Hybrid
- Job type
- Full-time
- Level
- Mid-level
- Listed
- 30 days ago
Skills & highlights for this role
- distributed systems
- caching infrastructure
- workflow orchestration
Also useful
- Redis
- Temporal
- FoundationDB
About the Role
As a software engineer in the core services team, you will design and operate critical backend platforms such as caching systems, workflow orchestration, metadata stores, and file services. You’ll focus on building highly reliable, scalable, and performant systems that serve as the backbone of our products.
We’re looking for people who are passionate about building infrastructure that empowers product teams, love working on distributed systems challenges, and enjoy creating well-designed APIs and abstractions that accelerate development.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will
- Design, build, and maintain shared infrastructure services such as caching layers, workflow orchestration (Temporal), metadata stores, and file storage services.
- Collaborate with product teams to provide scalable, reliable primitives that abstract the complexities of distributed systems.
- Improve performance, resilience, and scalability of core services that power customer-facing applications.
You might thrive in this role if you
- Have experience with distributed systems, caching infrastructure (e.g., Redis, Memcached), metadata storage (e.g., FoundationDB), or workflow orchestration (e.g., Temporal, Cadence).
- Have experience running containerized services in cloud environments and integrating them into automated build/test/release (CI/CD) workflows.
- Understand trade-offs in consistency models, replication strategies, and performance optimization in multi-region systems.
- Excel at communication and collaboration with cross-functional teams, and are obsessed with delivering customer success.
About the Team
The Core Services team is responsible for building and managing foundational services. It acts as the bridge between core infrastructure (e.g. compute, storage, networking) and product engineering teams, and enables product teams to move fast, build reliably, and scale efficiently.
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.
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.
Equal opportunity and legal notices
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.
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 obligations.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link
From OpenAI's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 10, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.
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Common questions
Where is the Software Engineer, Core Services job at OpenAI located?
This Software Engineer, Core Services position at OpenAI is located in San Francisco, CA (Hybrid). Always check OpenAI's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.
What qualifications are required for Software Engineer, Core Services at OpenAI?
For the Software Engineer, Core Services role, OpenAI highlights experience with distributed systems, caching infrastructure, workflow orchestration. Rolev.ai can score your existing resume against these requirements and show any skill gaps before you apply.
How do I apply for the Software Engineer, Core Services position at OpenAI?
This listing links directly to OpenAI's Ashby application page. You can apply directly on OpenAI's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the Ashby application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.