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For Companies At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and build distributed systems for large-scale AI training workloads.
- Company: Join OpenAI, a leader in cutting-edge AI technology.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, health benefits, remote work, and growth opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on AI research with innovative technology.
- Qualifications: Experience in low-level software and understanding of distributed systems.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with dynamic challenges and career advancement.
The predicted salary is between 36000 - 60000 £ per year.
About the Team
The Platform Systems team at OpenAI operates at the intersection of cutting-edge AI and large-scale distributed systems. We build the engineering and research infrastructure required to train OpenAI’s flagship models on some of the world’s largest, custom-built supercomputers. Our team develops core model training software and works deep in the stack - spanning collective communication, compute efficiency, parallelism strategies, fault tolerance, failure detection, and observability. The systems we build are foundational to OpenAI’s research velocity, enabling reliable, efficient training at frontier scale. We collaborate closely with researchers across the organization, continuously incorporating learnings from across OpenAI into the evolution of our training platform.
About the Role
As a Software Engineer, Platform Systems, you will design and build distributed systems that provide visibility into large-scale training workloads and help operate them reliably at scale. You’ll work on failure detection, tracing, and observability systems that identify slow or faulty nodes, surface performance bottlenecks, and help engineers understand and optimize massive distributed training jobs. This infrastructure is critical to operating OpenAI’s training stack and is actively evolving to support new use cases and increasingly complex workloads. This role sits at the core of our training infrastructure, blending systems engineering, performance analysis, and large-scale debugging.
In This Role, You Will
- Design and build distributed failure detection, tracing, and profiling systems for large-scale AI training jobs
- Develop tooling to identify slow, faulty, or misbehaving nodes and provide actionable visibility into system behavior
- Improve observability, reliability, and performance across OpenAI’s training platform
- Debug and resolve issues in complex, high-throughput distributed systems
- Collaborate with systems, infrastructure, and research teams to evolve platform capabilities
- Extend and adapt failure detection systems or tracing systems to support new training paradigms and workloads
You Might Thrive in This Role If You
- Care deeply about performance, stability, and observability in distributed systems
- Enjoy finding and fixing issues in large-scale systems and automating operational workflows
- Have experience writing low-level software where system details matter
- Understand hardware, operating systems, networking, concurrency, and distributed systems
- Have a background in high-performance computing or low-level systems engineering
- Are excited to work on critical infrastructure that powers frontier AI research
Software Engineer, Platform Systems in London employer: OpenAI
Contact Detail:
OpenAI Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Software Engineer, Platform Systems in London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Attend industry meetups, conferences, or even online webinars related to AI and distributed systems. Engaging with professionals in the field can lead to valuable connections and potential job opportunities.
✨Tip Number 2
Show off your skills! Create a portfolio showcasing your projects, especially those related to distributed systems or performance analysis. This gives you a chance to demonstrate your expertise and passion for the role.
✨Tip Number 3
Prepare for technical interviews by brushing up on your knowledge of failure detection, tracing, and observability systems. Practice coding challenges and system design questions that reflect the core responsibilities of the role.
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets noticed. Plus, we love seeing candidates who are genuinely interested in joining our team at StudySmarter.
We think you need these skills to ace Software Engineer, Platform Systems in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV reflects the skills and experiences that align with the role of Software Engineer, Platform Systems. Highlight any experience you have with distributed systems, performance analysis, and debugging, as these are key to what we do at StudySmarter.
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: Your cover letter is your chance to show us your passion for AI and distributed systems. Share specific examples of projects you've worked on that demonstrate your problem-solving skills and your ability to collaborate with teams, just like we do here at StudySmarter.
Showcase Relevant Projects: If you've worked on any relevant projects, whether in a professional setting or as personal endeavours, make sure to include them. We love seeing how you've applied your skills in real-world scenarios, especially those that involve large-scale systems.
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply through our website for a smoother application process. It helps us keep track of your application and ensures you don’t miss out on any important updates from us at StudySmarter!
How to prepare for a job interview at OpenAI
✨Know Your Distributed Systems
Make sure you brush up on your knowledge of distributed systems, especially around failure detection and observability. Be ready to discuss specific examples from your past experiences where you tackled performance bottlenecks or debugging challenges.
✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills
Prepare to walk through your thought process when faced with complex issues in high-throughput systems. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your answers and highlight how you approached and resolved these challenges.
✨Familiarise Yourself with OpenAI's Work
Do some homework on OpenAI’s training infrastructure and the specific technologies they use. Understanding their approach to AI and large-scale systems will not only impress your interviewers but also help you tailor your responses to align with their goals.
✨Collaborative Mindset is Key
Since this role involves working closely with various teams, be prepared to discuss your experience in collaboration. Share examples of how you’ve worked with researchers or engineers to evolve system capabilities and improve performance in previous roles.
