At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and build scalable cloud infrastructure for cutting-edge AI technology.
- Company: Join OpenAI, a leader in AI research and deployment.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible work options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with excellent career advancement opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on the future of technology with innovative projects.
- Qualifications: Strong software engineering skills and experience with distributed systems.
The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.
Location: London, UK
Employment Type: Full time
Department: Applied AI
About the Team
We’re hiring Software Engineers to join our broader Infrastructure organization, which supports multiple high-impact teams. Depending on your interests and experience, you could work on one of several focus areas—including Core Distributed Systems, Reliability Engineering, Observability, Developer Productivity or Cloud Infrastructure.
About the Role
All teams are deeply collaborative, work on mission-critical services, and are responsible for building distributed, scalable infrastructure to bring OpenAI’s technology to the world through products like ChatGPT and the OpenAI API. You’ll work closely with stakeholders to understand infrastructure, data and compute needs, setting the technical strategy that supports cutting-edge research and product development. This is a critical role for someone who is passionate about solving complex engineering problems at scale, ensuring their performance, scalability and reliability.
Team Focus Areas
- Distributed Systems: Owning and building important, highly scalable, available, performant, and reliable distributed systems (and their building blocks) to power the entire stack at OpenAI.
- Systems Engineering: Work across layers of the stack—debugging system bottlenecks, evolving core infrastructure, and solving novel problems in performance and scalability.
- Reliability Engineering: Build scalable, fault-tolerant systems and lead efforts around service health, incident response, and resilience.
- Observability: Design and maintain observability tooling (metrics, logs, tracing) to give teams visibility into production systems at scale.
- Developer Productivity: Create tools, environments, and workflows that help engineers ship high-quality software faster and more safely.
- Cloud Infrastructure: Own the cloud-native infrastructure (compute, networking, storage) that underpins all services and research workloads.
- Databases: Building high performance, distributed database systems that power all of OpenAI's product stack.
In this role you will:
- Design, build, and maintain reliable and performant systems used across engineering.
- Work with your team to define technical strategy, architecture, and long-term goals.
- Collaborate with other engineers, product managers, and researchers to build infrastructure that meets evolving needs.
- Improve internal tooling, automation, and developer experience.
- Contribute to incident response, postmortems, and the development of best practices around system reliability and scalability.
You might thrive in this role if you:
- Strong software engineering skills with experience in Python, Go, C++, Rust, or similar languages.
- Experience designing, operating, or scaling distributed systems or developer infrastructure.
- Comfort working in Linux environments, and with tools like Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, and modern observability stacks.
- Ability to navigate complex systems and a willingness to dig deep when debugging tricky issues.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, especially in cross-functional settings.
Qualifications:
- 4+ years of relevant industry experience, with 2+ years leading large scale, complex projects or teams as an engineer or tech lead.
- A passion for distributed systems at scale with a focus on reliability, scalability, security, and continuous improvement.
- Excellent communication skills, with ability to build consensus among stakeholders both internally and externally.
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.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure employer: Slope
OpenAI is an exceptional employer located in London, UK, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters collaboration and innovation among its teams. Employees benefit from opportunities for professional growth while working on cutting-edge technology that impacts the world, all within a supportive environment that values diverse perspectives and promotes inclusivity.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Slope or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Slope.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Slope.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Slope that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Slope.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Slope and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Slope
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Slope uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
