Research Engineer, Focused Bets

About the Team

The Strategic Deployment team makes frontier models more capable, reliable, and aligned to transform high-impact domains. On one hand, this involves deploying models in real-world, high-stakes settings to drive AI-driven transformation and elicit insights—training data, evaluation methods, and techniques—to shape our frontier model development. On the other hand, we leverage these learnings to build the science and engineering of impactful frontier model deployment.

Put differently, we want to understand: if AGI is viewed as AI being able to majorly transform our economy, how close are we to AGI? What’s still missing? How do we bridge these gaps?

About the Role

As a Research Engineer on the Focused Bets effort in the Strategic Deployment team , you will help OpenAI identify real-world domains that are ripe for transformation through frontier AI capabilities. You’ll act as a technical lead and hands-on builder, partnering with subject matter experts to understand the key aspects of a given domain, pinpointing the most critical tasks in that domain, and developing technical proofs-of-concept that build conviction driving OpenAI’s strategic engagements.

We’re looking for people who combine a strong machine learning background with an entrepreneurial mindset—engineers who can thrive in ambiguity, quickly iterate toward the signal, and adapt their approach as new insights emerge. You should be deeply curious about where AI can (and can’t yet) have impact, and excited to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

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:

• Drive research and prototyping sprints into specific domains in collaboration with domain experts.

• Translate real-world tasks into tractable ML/engineering problems and develop proof-of-concept solutions using OpenAI models and tools.

• Deliver working demos, run in-the-wild evaluations, and distill insights into actionable guidance for OpenAI’s research and deployment teams.
  

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Care about real-world impact of AI.

• Are excited to drive how frontier models are developed and deployed.

• Have hands-on experience in AI research, systems, or applied science.

• Are excited by startup-style ambiguity and enjoy working across disciplines to drive a project from zero to one.

• Enjoy working in open-ended problem spaces and high-feedback environments.

• Are a curious, adaptable generalist who enjoys learning fast, asking deep questions, and solving open-ended problems.

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. 

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 .

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

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.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link .

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.

Compensation

$295K – $440K + Offers Equity