OpenAI

Inference Technical Lead – On-Device Transformers

OpenAI

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Hybrid

Location: San Francisco • California • United States

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Salary

💰 $445,000 per year

Job Level

Senior

About the role

  • Evaluate and select silicon platforms (GPUs, NPUs, and specialized accelerators) for on-device and edge deployment of OpenAI models.
  • Work closely with research teams to co-design model architectures that meet real-world deployment constraints such as latency, memory, power, and bandwidth.
  • Analyze and model system performance, identifying tradeoffs between model design, memory hierarchy, compute throughput, and hardware capabilities.
  • Partner with hardware vendors and internal infrastructure teams to bring up new accelerators and ensure efficient execution of transformer workloads.
  • Build and lead a team of engineers responsible for implementing the low-level inference stack, including kernel development and runtime systems.
  • Run through the necessary walls to take nascent research capabilities and turn them into capabilities we can build on top of.

Requirements

  • Have experience evaluating or deploying workloads on GPUs, NPUs, or other specialized accelerators.
  • Understand the performance characteristics of transformer models, including attention, KV-cache behavior, and memory bandwidth requirements.
  • Have designed or optimized high-performance compute systems, such as inference engines, distributed runtimes, or hardware-aware ML pipelines.
  • Have experience building or leading teams working on low-level performance-critical software such as CUDA kernels, compilers, or ML runtimes.
  • Have already spent time in the weeds teaching models to speak and perceive.
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.
Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools
GPUNPUspecialized acceleratorsmodel architecture designsystem performance analysiskernel developmentruntime systemsinference enginesdistributed runtimesML pipelines
Soft Skills
team leadershipcollaborationproblem-solvingcommunication