Job description

ABOUT THE TEAM Agent Runtime builds the shared agent primitives and compute runtime that power OpenAI products and applications. As agents take on more complex, longer-running tasks, we build the systems that let them maintain state, use tools, and work reliably in the environments they need. We work closely with Research, Product, and infrastructure teams to turn advances in model capabilities into useful products. Our work combines deep systems engineering with a clear understanding of customer needs, creating reusable foundations that help teams build and scale new agent experiences. ABOUT THE ROLE We’re looking for a software engineer with strong product infrastructure experience to build the services, APIs, and runtime capabilities behind persistent agents. You’ll focus on the product infrastructure that makes agent workflows reliable and scalable, including persistent state, asynchronous execution, orchestration, and visibility into work in progress. You’ll bring product judgment to infrastructure decisions: understanding how people and developers use agents, translating those needs into clear abstractions, and owning systems from design through launch and production operation. You’ll work closely with partner teams to deliver new capabilities while strengthening the shared foundations they depend on. IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL: - Design, build, and operate backend services, APIs, and reusable runtime primitives that support agent experiences across products. - Build systems for persistent agent state, asynchronous execution, orchestration, and progress reporting so agents can carry work forward over time. - Develop infrastructure that connects agents with tools and execution environments, with clear interfaces and safe, reliable behavior. - Improve reliability, scalability, and performance through observability, production debugging, failure recovery, and thoughtful system design. - Partner with Product, Research, and engineering teams to turn emerging capabilities and customer needs into reusable infrastructure. - Own projects end to end, balancing rapid iteration with maintainable architecture and the operational demands of systems used across products. YOUR BACKGROUND MIGHT LOOK SOMETHING LIKE: - 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with substantial ownership of backend systems, product infrastructure, or developer platforms. - A track record of designing, shipping, and operating production services, APIs, and data models that support complex product workflows. - Strong distributed systems fundamentals and experience reasoning about state, concurrency, asynchronous work, and failure recovery. - Experience building production systems in Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar languages, and the ability to work across service and infrastructure boundaries. - Experience improving reliability and performance, using observability and debugging to understand system behavior and resolve production issues. - Strong product judgment and developer empathy, with an ability to translate ambiguous needs into clear APIs, useful abstractions, and pragmatic technical tradeoffs. - An ability to collaborate across product and infrastructure teams, communicate design decisions clearly, and take ownership from early exploration through production. - Interest in AI agents and how they execute real work. Experience with agent runtimes, workflow orchestration, or execution environments is helpful but not required. 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 cdn.openai.com. 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 form.asana.com. 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 form.asana.com. OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy cdn.openai.com 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.

Requirements

Must-haves

Design, build, and operate backend services, APIs, and reusable runtime primitives that support agent experiences across products.
Build systems for persistent agent state, asynchronous execution, orchestration, and progress reporting so agents can carry work forward over time.
Develop infrastructure that connects agents with tools and execution environments, with clear interfaces and safe, reliable behavior.
Improve reliability, scalability, and performance through observability, production debugging, failure recovery, and thoughtful system design.
Partner with Product, Research, and engineering teams to turn emerging capabilities and customer needs into reusable infrastructure.
Own projects end to end, balancing rapid iteration with maintainable architecture and the operational demands of systems used across products.
7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with substantial ownership of backend systems, product infrastructure, or developer platforms.
A track record of designing, shipping, and operating production services, APIs, and data models that support complex product workflows.
Strong distributed systems fundamentals and experience reasoning about state, concurrency, asynchronous work, and failure recovery.
Experience building production systems in Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar languages, and the ability to work across service and infrastructure boundaries.
Experience improving reliability and performance, using observability and debugging to understand system behavior and resolve production issues.
Strong product judgment and developer empathy, with an ability to translate ambiguous needs into clear APIs, useful abstractions, and pragmatic technical tradeoffs.
An ability to collaborate across product and infrastructure teams, communicate design decisions clearly, and take ownership from early exploration through production.
Interest in AI agents and how they execute real work. Experience with agent runtimes, workflow orchestration, or execution environments is helpful but not required.

Nice-to-haves

None flagged.

Application prep

Use the role’s language and application details while tailoring your materials.

Keywords to mirror

pythongorusttypescriptai

Platform: ashby
Effort: quick