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OpenAI

Software Engineer, Core Science

OpenAI

. Shape the future of AI-powered scientific research by building backend systems and full-stack product experiences across Prism and Codex .

Posted 5/23/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $293,000 - $385,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies
Distributed Systems

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact
  • Shape the future of AI-powered scientific research by building backend systems and full-stack product experiences across Prism and Codex
  • Develop AI-native workflows for paper writing, literature review, paper understanding, research synthesis, and scientific knowledge exploration, designing systems that can work across complex technical content, heterogeneous sources, and evolving research questions.
  • Partner closely with researchers and domain experts across biology and adjacent scientific disciplines to understand real research workflows, identify high-leverage opportunities for AI, and translate ambiguous scientific needs into useful, trustworthy product capabilities.
  • Build AI-powered tools for scientific data analysis and simulation, helping researchers explore complex datasets, design and run computational experiments, interpret results, and iterate on models or hypotheses more efficiently.
  • Help establish the product, platform, and engineering foundations for fast-moving 0 → 1 efforts across the Core Science organization, balancing rapid experimentation with the rigor, reliability, and quality required for tools used in research.

Requirements

What you’ll need
  • Have strong backend or full-stack engineering fundamentals and experience taking complex product ideas from prototype to reliable production systems, with attention to performance, usability, and maintainability.
  • Are comfortable building in highly ambiguous 0 → 1 environments, where customer needs, product direction, technical architecture, and model capabilities are evolving quickly.
  • Are excited about applying AI systems to consequential real-world scientific problems, and care about building tools that improve how researchers reason, analyze evidence, collaborate, and make discoveries.
  • Have experience building scalable distributed systems, developer platforms, data-intensive applications, retrieval or knowledge systems, workflow tools, or model-powered product experiences.
  • Care deeply about product quality, iteration speed, and user impact, and can use feedback from researchers and domain experts to rapidly improve systems while maintaining scientific and technical trustworthiness.
  • Are curious about scientific workflows and domains such as computational biology, biology, chemistry, biomedical research, scientific literature, or research tooling, and are motivated to learn from experts in these areas.
  • Communicate clearly across engineering, research, product, and domain-specialist audiences, and enjoy turning complex, underspecified problems into opinionated systems that researchers can depend on.

Benefits

Comp & perks
  • 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.

ATS Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools
backend engineeringfull-stack engineeringAI systemsscalable distributed systemsdata-intensive applicationscomputational experimentsmodel-powered product experiencesperformance optimizationusability designmaintainability
Soft Skills
communicationcollaborationcuriosityproblem-solvingiteration speedattention to detailadaptabilityuser impact focustrustworthinessfeedback utilization