---
title: 'Staff Security Reliability Engineer at OpenAI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-security-reliability-engineer-openai-san-francisco-ep41zedkh86p'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-24'
---

# Staff Security Reliability Engineer at OpenAI

- **Company:** [OpenAI](https://feeny.ai/companies/openai)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $347k–$510k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-06-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-24
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/a368e0b4-2027-4d73-b45b-8a6a9b06c77b/application

**Skills:** Terraform, Chef, Ansible, Microsoft Entra, Azure, Infrastructure-as-code, Configuration management, Site Reliability Engineering, Observability, Incident response, Identity management, Policy enforcement, FleetDM, Azure Virtual Desktop, Endpoint platforms, Virtual desktop platforms

> Design, build, and operate reliable, secure, and scalable infrastructure for identity, access, and platform services. This senior technical role focuses on applying Site Reliability Engineering principles to replace bespoke implementations with standardized, repeatable infrastructure-as-code patterns.

## Job description

## About the Team

The Infrastructure Engineering function sits within IT and is responsible for reliably building, deploying, and operating critical on prem and hybrid environments that power internal services and critical R&D environments. This is an early, high-leverage technical role focused on applying strong Site Reliability Engineering discipline to environments where uptime, safety, recoverability, and security are non-negotiable. This person helps replace bespoke, one-off infrastructure with standardized infrastructure-as-code building blocks that compound reliability and operational leverage as OpenAI scales.

## About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Site Reliability Engineer working on security infrastructure to design, build, and operate reliable, secure, and scalable infrastructure that underpins identity, access, endpoint, and shared platform services across the company. In this role, you will be a senior technical owner for infrastructure and identity systems end to end, from architecture and implementation through policy enforcement, upgrades, recovery, and day-two operations. You will build durable, production-grade platforms that remove operational friction, enforce security by default, and enable teams to move faster with confidence. This role is well suited for a hands-on senior engineer who thrives in ambiguity, enjoys owning complex systems end to end, and raises the reliability and security bar by replacing fragile implementations with standardized, repeatable infrastructure. This role is based in our San Francisco HQ and requires in-office presence.

In this role, you will:

- Design, build, and operate reliable infrastructure across on-prem, hybrid, shared, and product adjacent environments.
- Establish standardized infrastructure patterns that replace bespoke implementations with repeatable, auditable, secure-by-default systems.
- Own the lifecycle of critical infrastructure platforms, including provisioning, deployment, upgrades, patching, recovery, and long-term reliability.
- Build infrastructure-as-code and configuration management using tools such as Terraform, Chef, and Ansible.
- Mature identity adjacent and policy enforced infrastructure, including Microsoft Entra and Azure management patterns.
- Build observability, alerting, and incident response mechanisms that improve availability, recoverability, and operational confidence.
- Automate high-toil and high-risk workflows with guardrails, progressive rollout patterns, and safe rollback paths.
- Translate incidents, design reviews, and operational learnings into durable fixes, reusable patterns, and stronger technical standards.
- Influence cross-functional partners across security, identity, network, and platform teams through architecture, implementation, operational data, and clear technical writing

You might thrive in this role if you:

- Have 10+ years of hands-on experience operating and architecting mission-critical infrastructure in high-reliability environments
- Have experience running Security Infrastructure
- Have been the senior technical owner for the design and maturation of complex on-prem, hybrid, or cloud-integrated systems, setting durable architectural patterns used by multiple teams
- Apply Site Reliability Engineering principles at scale, using observability, automation, and incident learnings to materially reduce risk and operational toil
- Operate comfortably in ambiguity, making sound architectural decisions under pressure while staying close to technical detail
- Have experience operating infrastructure for R&D or specialized labs, manufacturing, or other safety critical environments where uptime and recoverability are essential
- Have experience with fleet, endpoint, or virtual desktop platforms such as FleetDM, Chef, or Azure Virtual Desktop
- Have experience partnering closely with identity or security engineering teams on hardened, policy enforced infrastructure at scale

## 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. For additional information, please see [OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf). Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through [this form](https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA). No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this [link](https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241). [OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf) At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

## About OpenAI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company with a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity.
- **Entity Type**: Private – structured as a nonprofit parent (OpenAI Foundation) governing a for-profit public benefit corporation (OpenAI Group). The company has confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC, signaling a potential future IPO.
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Wojciech Zaremba, and others

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Artificial intelligence research and deployment
- **Target customers**: B2B (enterprises via API and platform), B2C (ChatGPT users), and developers (API, open-source models)
- **Mission**: To ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI systems that are generally smarter than humans – benefits all of humanity.

## Products & Services
- **[ChatGPT](https://openai.com/chatgpt)**: Conversational AI assistant available via web and mobile, used by consumers and integrated into enterprise workflows.
- **[GPT-4 API](https://openai.com/product)**: Large language model accessed via API for developers to build AI-powered applications (text generation, summarization, code assistance, etc.).
- **[DALL-E](https://openai.com/dall-e-3)**: Image generation model that creates images from natural language descriptions.
- **[Whisper](https://openai.com/research/whisper)**: Open-source speech recognition system.
- **[OpenAI Agents](https://openai.com/)**: Emerging product category focused on autonomous AI agents that can perform tasks on behalf of users (announced June 2026).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed in the provided sources. Widely reported in the press at ~$300 billion as of early 2026 (post-funding round), but this figure is not confirmed by OpenAI’s official materials.
- **Key Metric**: Total funding exceeds $13 billion from Microsoft and other investors. The company has also confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC (see [openai.com](https://openai.com/) – “Confidential submission of draft S-1”).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Microsoft (strategic partner and largest investor), with additional participation from Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.
- **Growth Signals**: Active hiring with 721 open roles posted; expansion into agent-based products; confidential IPO filing; continued deployment of frontier models.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover & brand recognition**: ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in history, establishing OpenAI as the household name in generative AI.
- **Research leadership**: Consistently publishes cutting-edge research (GPT-4, DALL-E 3, Whisper, etc.) and attracts top AI talent.
- **Compute & infrastructure**: Exclusive partnership with Microsoft provides massive cloud computing resources (Azure) for training and inference.
- **Unique governance structure**: The nonprofit parent ensures mission alignment (AGI benefiting humanity) while the for-profit arm can raise capital and scale products.

## Strategic Focus
- **Safe AGI development**: Continued emphasis on safety research, alignment, and responsible deployment (e.g., safety systems, model provenance).
- **Enterprise expansion**: Growing ChatGPT Enterprise and API offerings for businesses.
- **Agentic AI**: Building autonomous agents that can “transform work” (announced June 2026).
- **IPO preparation**: Confidential S-1 filing indicates intent to go public, which will require increased financial transparency and governance maturity.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & values**: OpenAI’s stated values include “Humanity first,” “Act with humility,” “Feel the AGI,” and “Ship joy.” Operating principles emphasize agency, creativity, rapid iteration, and intense focus.
- **Benefits**: Competitive health insurance, mental healthcare support, 24-week paid birth-parent leave (plus 20 weeks for other parents), generous PTO, annual learning & development stipend, daily meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), and a domestic conference budget.
- **Work environment**: Hybrid/office-based (San Francisco headquarters). The company offers a residency program for researchers and engineers transitioning into AI.
- **Impact**: Employees work directly on frontier AI models that shape the industry and society. The mission-driven nature attracts talent passionate about AGI’s societal implications.

## Sources
1. [OpenAI About Page](https://openai.com/about/)
2. [OpenAI Careers Page](https://openai.com/careers/)
3. [OpenAI Job Search](https://openai.com/careers/search)
4. [OpenAI Homepage](https://openai.com/)

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