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 60000 - 80000 £ 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 environment where collaboration and innovation thrive. As a Software Engineer in Cloud Infrastructure, you'll have the opportunity to work on mission-critical services that impact the world, while benefiting from a culture that prioritises employee growth, inclusivity, and cutting-edge technology. With a focus on professional development and a commitment to ensuring AI benefits all of humanity, OpenAI provides a unique platform for engineers passionate about solving complex challenges at scale.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to current employees at OpenAI or similar companies on LinkedIn. A friendly chat can give you insider info and maybe even a referral, which can really boost your chances.
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for technical interviews by brushing up on your coding skills and system design knowledge. Use platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to practice problems that are relevant to distributed systems and cloud infrastructure.
✨Tip Number 3
Show off your passion! During interviews, share your personal projects or contributions to open-source software that relate to the role. This demonstrates your commitment to the field and your hands-on experience.
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in joining our team.
We think you need these skills to ace Software Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your Application:Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter for the Software Engineer role. Highlight your experience with distributed systems and any relevant projects you've worked on. We want to see how your skills align with our needs!
Show Off Your Skills:Don’t hold back on showcasing your technical skills! Mention your experience with languages like Python, Go, or Rust, and any tools like Kubernetes or Terraform that you’ve used. We love seeing what you can bring to the table!
Be Clear and Concise:When writing your application, keep it clear and to the point. Use bullet points where possible to make it easy for us to read. We appreciate a well-structured application that gets straight to the good stuff!
Apply Through Our Website:We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way to ensure your application gets into the right hands. Plus, it shows us you’re serious about joining our team at StudySmarter!
How to prepare for a job interview at Slope
✨Know Your Tech Stack
Make sure you’re well-versed in the technologies mentioned in the job description, like Python, Go, and Kubernetes. Brush up on your knowledge of distributed systems and cloud infrastructure, as these will likely be key discussion points during your interview.
✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills
Prepare to discuss specific examples where you've tackled complex engineering problems. Think about times when you improved system reliability or scalability, and be ready to explain your thought process and the impact of your solutions.
✨Collaborate and Communicate
Since this role involves working closely with cross-functional teams, practice articulating your ideas clearly. Be prepared to discuss how you’ve collaborated with product managers and researchers in the past, and how you can contribute to a team environment.
✨Ask Insightful Questions
At the end of the interview, don’t forget to ask questions that show your interest in the role and the company. Inquire about the team’s current projects, challenges they face, or how they measure success in their infrastructure initiatives. This demonstrates your enthusiasm and helps you gauge if it’s the right fit for you.
