Software Engineer, Compute Foundations Systems

Overview

ABOUT THE TEAM Frontier Systems Foundations, part of Compute Foundations at OpenAI, builds the systems software foundation that turns new compute infrastructure into reliable, usable capacity for frontier model training. Our mission is to make some of the world's largest GPU clusters work reliably for frontier training. We bring new platforms and clusters online, safely maintain installed fleets, and partner with har

What you'll do

• Relevant backgrounds include kernel and module development, Linux distribution or image engineering, package management, firmware and driver integration, disks and boot, and bare-metal provisioning.
• You'll work closely with hardware engineers, vendors, and infrastructure teams to bring up new platforms, integrate system components, and debug failures across firmware, disks, boot, operating systems, kernels, drivers, and workload interactions.
• Your work will directly influence how quickly new capacity becomes usable and how reliably large GPU fleets operate.
• You should be comfortable writing and maintaining production-quality systems software and automation, but we do not expect expertise across every layer.
• This is an opportunity to go deep on challenging systems problems while building the image, package, qualification, and recovery paths that power the next generation of frontier models.
• Build and maintain the Linux host software stack for large GPU clusters, including Ubuntu and OS images, kernel configuration and modules, drivers, packages, disks and storage configuration, and machine configuration.
• Design reproducible OS-image builds, package and repository workflows, and system configuration for heterogeneous bare-metal and cloud compute fleets.
• Integrate, test, and qualify kernels, modules, drivers, packages, and firmware across new and existing hardware platforms; build safe canary, rollback, and recovery paths for system changes.

Requirements

• Practical experience with Go, RAG.
• Relevant academic or project background for a Software Engineer, Compute Foundations Systems role.
• Strong written and verbal communication in English.
• Comfortable working on-site in San Francisco.

Skills