System Performance Engineer, Consumer Devices

OpenAI

System Performance Engineer optimizing performance of AI-powered embedded hardware products at OpenAI. Collaborating with engineering teams to define benchmarks and improve user experience across product lifecycle.

Posted 6/16/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $293,000 - $325,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AndroidiOSLinuxPythonRust

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Develop system performance benchmarks, methodologies, and policies to evaluate end-to-end product behavior.
Profile and analyze performance across key product use cases and workloads using custom and industry-standard profiling tools.
Partner closely with engineering teams to identify bottlenecks and drive performance optimizations across the software stack.
Define high-level product KPIs and establish measurement frameworks to measure launch readiness and monitor performance throughout the product lifecycle.
Measure, report, and track metrics including system responsiveness, memory utilization, cold boot performance, long-term stability, and behavior under constrained conditions such as thermal limits and low battery states.
Investigate field performance regressions and drive issues to resolution using data-driven analysis.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Deep experience shipping embedded or high-performance systems on Linux, Android, or iOS devices.
Strong proficiency in C/C++, Python, or Rust, with exceptional operating systems fundamentals, including process management, IPC, drivers, interrupts, power management, media frameworks, graphics, filesystems, and networking.
A proven track record shipping real-time systems operating under tight latency, power, and memory constraints.
Expertise with profiling and debugging tools such as Perfetto, GDB, LLDB, perf, ftrace, or Instruments.
Experience building instrumentation, analytics, and performance tuning frameworks.

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

CC++PythonRustoperating systems fundamentalsreal-time systemsperformance tuningprofilingdebuggingembedded systems

Soft Skills

collaborationdata-driven analysisproblem-solvingcommunication