About the RoleOpenAI is seeking a Principal Security Engineer to join our Infrastructure Security (InfraSec) team. InfraSec protects the foundations of OpenAI's research and production environments, spanning GPU supercomputing clusters, multi-cloud infrastructure, datacenters, networking, storage, and the critical services that power our frontier AI models. Our charter includes securing everything from bare-metal hardware and firmware, to Kubernetes clusters and service meshes, to data storage and access pathways for highly sensitive model weights and user data.
As a principal engineer, you will set technical direction and drive execution on high-impact infrastructure security programs, partnering across various orgs at OpenAI to deliver durable controls that raise the security bar at OpenAI scale.
In this role, you will:- Own end-to-end security outcomes for one or more critical infrastructure areas, including multi-quarter strategy, roadmap, and delivery.
- Design and build security controls across diverse layers (e.g., physical hardware, firmware/BMC, OS, Kubernetes, networks, and CI/CD) to defend against sophisticated adversaries and insider threats.
- Lead cross-functional programs to deploy security enhancements and control changes across broad-scale infrastructure, balancing security guarantees with reliability and velocity.
- Take a generalist approach to building security controls, balancing a mix of security expertise and broad technical skillsets to adapt to evolving challenges.
- Lead and/or drive threat modeling and design reviews for major infrastructure changes, ensuring strong security foundations and operational excellence.
- Mentor and level up engineers across InfraSec and partner teams, contributing to a strong security culture through guidance, reviews, and technical leadership.
You will thrive in this role if you have:- Deep understanding of security principles, best practices, and common vulnerabilities, including strong security judgment under ambiguity
- A proactive mindset, with the ability to identify and address security gaps or inefficiencies through automation and tooling.
- Expertise and curiosity about using frontier models and agents to effectively solve security challenges.
- A track record of leading large, cross-org initiatives from concept to rollout, including navigating tradeoffs, driving alignment, and delivering measurable risk reduction.
- Deep expertise in the security of cloud platforms (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure), especially securing multi-cloud networks and infrastructure, and designing cloud-agnostic systems.
- Experience securing on-prem deployments and datacenters from construction to multi-tenant use.
- Familiarity with container security, orchestration security, and authentication/authorization.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with an ability to think critically and objectively assess security risks.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex security concepts to executive, technical, and non-technical stakeholders.
- Excitement about collaborating with cross-functional teams to build secure, reliable systems that scale globally.
