Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure Security

Location

Remote - US;
New York City;
San Francisco;
Seattle

Full time

Remote

Security

• SF, Seattle or NYC: $347K – $490K
  • Offers Equity
• Zone A: $312K – $490K
  • Offers Equity
• Zone B: $277.6K – $490K
  • Offers Equity

The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non‑exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance‑related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
• Pre‑tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non‑birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non‑exempt employees
• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
• Mental health and wellness support
• Employer‑paid basic life and disability coverage
• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
• Relocation support for eligible employees
• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.

This role is at‑will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.

Security is at the foundation of OpenAI’s mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

The Security team protects OpenAI’s technology, people, and products. We are technical in what we build but operational in how we execute, and we support every product and research effort  tenets include prioritizing for impact, enabling researchers and developers, preparing for future transformative technologies, and fostering a strong, collaborative security culture.

OpenAI is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Infrastructure Security (Infra Sec) team. Infra Sec safeguards the core of OpenAI’s research and production environments: GPU supercomputing clusters, multi‑cloud infrastructure, datacenters, networking, storage, and the critical services that power our frontier AI models. Our charter spans everything from bare‑metal hardware and firmware to Kubernetes clusters, service meshes, and the data pathways that carry highly sensitive model weights and user data.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will set technical direction and drive execution of critical foundational services, such as authentication systems, egress/ingress proxies, access brokers, and key management platforms, that demand high standards of reliability, scalability, and software craftsmanship. These systems form the security backbone of OpenAI’s customer and supercomputing environment and must remain robust under intense scale and adversarial pressure.

• Own the architecture and roadmap for one or more core security services (e.g., authN/Z, policy enforcement, secure proxies, key management), taking them from design to rollout to long‑term operation.
• Design and implement planet‑scale security systems that provide strong guarantees across hardware, operating systems, Kubernetes, networks, and CI/CD: balancing security, reliability, latency, and developer ergonomics.
• Lead cross‑functional launches with infrastructure and research engineering teams, shaping interfaces, migration plans, and safe rollout strategies…