OpenAI

Backend Software Engineer, API Enterprise Controls

OpenAI$130K — $180K *
Enterprise Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 9+ years of backend engineering experience excluding internships.
  • Expertise in backend engineering with proven product judgment and successful API/platform delivery.
  • Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and influencing product direction.
  • Proficient in backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, or TypeScript.
  • Familiarity with distributed systems, databases, streaming, authentication, and enterprise controls.
  • Strong communication skills and empathy for developers, translating user needs into technical solutions.
  • Commitment to reliability, DevOps practices, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

  • Own enterprise backend capabilities including authentication, compliance, and operational workflows.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify needs and shape product roadmaps.
  • Design developer-facing APIs and enhance user experience with great attention to detail.
  • Build and maintain reliable backend systems across multiple infrastructures.
  • Lead projects from design to launch, ensuring operational ownership and reliability.

Benefits

  • Flexible work environment that supports remote collaboration.
  • Access to professional development opportunities.
  • Health and wellness benefits including fitness memberships.
  • Collaborative culture that emphasizes teamwork and innovation.
Full Job Description
About the Role

We are looking for an exceptional backend software engineer to help define and ship the enterprise capabilities our API Platform needs to scale.; this is a product-engineering role grounded in deep backend systems. You will work across databases, streaming systems, request routing, authentication, and developer-facing APIs while bringing strong product judgment, developer empathy, and attention to the small details that make a platform easier to understand, trust, and operate. You will lead large cross-functional initiatives, work closely with Product and go-to-market teams, engage directly with sophisticated users, and carry ambiguous needs from discovery through design, launch, and iteration.

In this role, you will:
  • Own backend product capabilities end to end across authentication and identity, service accounts and key controls, secure networking, compliance, observability, and operational workflows.
  • Partner with Product, go-to-market, security, infrastructure teams, and sophisticated customers to identify needs, shape the roadmap, and lead large cross-functional projects from design through launch.
  • Design developer-facing APIs, system behavior, configuration, error handling, safe defaults, auditing, and notifications with exceptional care for the details that define a great developer experience.
  • Build, operate, and debug highly reliable backend systems spanning databases, streaming infrastructure, request routing, and distributed services, with strong operational ownership.

Your background might look something like:
  • 9+ years of professional engineering experience, excluding internships, in relevant backend, platform, or product-driven engineering roles.
  • Exceptional backend engineering depth paired with strong product judgment and a track record of shipping API or platform capabilities that users depend on.
  • Experience leading large cross-functional initiatives, influencing product direction, and aligning engineering, Product, go-to-market, security, and infrastructure partners.
  • Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar, with strong software design and systems fundamentals.
  • Experience with distributed systems, databases, streaming systems, request routing, authentication and identity, networking, or enterprise platform controls.
  • Strong communication and developer empathy, including experience working closely with product partners and users to turn ambiguous needs into clear technical decisions.
  • Strong opinions about reliability, DevOps, and operational excellence, paired with meticulous attention to the details that make complex systems feel simple and dependable.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company was founded in 2015 by a group of technology leaders, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and John Schulman. OpenAI's mission is to develop and promote friendly AI for the betterment of humanity. The company has developed a number of cutting-edge AI technologies, including GPT-3, a language processing system that can generate human-like text. OpenAI has received funding from a number of high-profile investors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Learn more about OpenAI
Size
100 employees
Industry
Founded
2015

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