Software Engineer, API Safety

OpenAI

Software Engineer building dashboards, APIs, and safeguards for OpenAI’s frontier AI platform. Ensuring reliable, scalable safety across high-volume developer traffic.

Posted 8/21/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorLead💰 $293,000 - $385,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

Use this summary to align your resume positioning with the role.

Demonstrates expertise in designing and building scalable backend systems and APIs, with a strong focus on safety, observability, and operational tradeoffs. Proven ability to lead complex projects from concept to production while maintaining high engineering standards and effective communication with cross-functional teams.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Backend DevelopmentAPI DesignDistributed SystemsPython ProgrammingProject Leadership

ATS Keywords

Tailor your resume

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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

Hard Skills

Backend LanguagesScalable SystemsSystems FundamentalsConcurrencyLatency ManagementObservabilityOperational TradeoffsSafety ControlsRisk MitigationTechnical Design

Soft Skills

Clear CommunicationCollaborative ApproachDeveloper EmpathyProblem SolvingTeam Leadership

Industry Keywords

Trust and SafetyPrivacySecurityComplianceAbuse Prevention

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Distributed SystemsGoPythonRustTypeScript

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and build dashboards and APIs for safety controls and customer-facing observability
Develop scalable systems that extend trusted safety capabilities to new use cases, customers, and deployment environments
Partner with Safety Research and Integrity to build safeguards that mitigate emerging risks
Own availability, latency, and scalability of safeguards across high-volume API traffic
Own projects from technical design and implementation through launch and ongoing iteration
Raise the team’s engineering standards
Balance developer experience, latency, reliability, and risk tradeoffs
Solve production challenges and design new product experiences and safeguards

Requirements

What you’ll need

7+ years of professional experience, excluding internships, in backend, infrastructure, platform, or product engineering roles
Track record of designing, building, and operating production backend services, developer-facing APIs, or distributed systems
Strong software engineering and systems fundamentals
Experience leading technically complex projects from ambiguous ideas to production
Proficiency in one or more general-purpose backend languages, such as Python, Go, Rust, or TypeScript
Experience with reliable, scalable systems and distributed architecture, concurrency, latency, observability, and operational tradeoffs
Product judgment and developer empathy, including ability to turn complex model or infrastructure capabilities into clear, intuitive APIs
Clear communication and collaborative approach with researchers, product managers, designers, infrastructure engineers, and customers
Experience with observability, abuse prevention, trust and safety, identity, security, privacy, compliance, or risk systems is a strong plus
Interest in helping frontier AI reach more developers and businesses responsibly

Benefits

Comp & perks

Equity
Performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees
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)
Paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
Flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
13+ paid company holidays
Multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year
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
Daily meals in offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
Relocation support for eligible employees
Charitable donation matching and wellness stipends may also be provided