About the Team
The Proactivity Research team, within OpenAI’s broader Personal AGI team, is focused on making our models in ChatGPT and future potential products proactive in ways that are truly useful. We're laying the technical foundations for AI that can anticipate what users need in real time, adapt as their goals and preferences shift, and build a deeper, evolving understanding of the person it's helping.
About the Role
As a Research Engineer / Scientist, you will research and develop improvements to our models’ personalization and agentic capabilities. Our team works on reinforcement learning, dataset creation, evaluations, and other post-training methods. We partner closely with research and product teams across the company to realize the vision of a highly personalized, collaborative, and proactive assistant.
We're looking for individuals with strong ML engineering skills and research experience, especially with novel and highly capable models. An ideal candidate is passionate about product-driven research.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will:
Own and pursue a research agenda to improve the proactivity and ability of our models to further user goals.
Build robust evaluations for tracking modeling improvements.
Design, implement, test, and debug code across our research stack.
Collaborate closely with the other research and product teams to influence the shape of technical solutions in the product
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have a deep understanding of machine learning and machine learning applications.
Have a working knowledge of LLM post-training and evaluation approaches
Are passionate about, or have experience thinking about, personalization and enabling users to achieve their goals
Are comfortable diving into a large ML codebase to debug.
Thrive in a dynamic and technically complex environment.
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.
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. 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.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
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.
Skills Required
- Strong machine learning engineering skills
- Research experience with novel and highly capable models
- Working knowledge of LLM post-training and evaluation approaches
- Experience with reinforcement learning
- Ability to design, implement, test, and debug code across a large ML research codebase
- Experience or interest in personalization and agentic model behavior
- Collaborative experience working with cross-functional research and product teams
OpenAI Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about OpenAI and has not been reviewed or approved by OpenAI.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity is considered substantial and has become more accessible through tender offers and eased vesting terms. Feedback suggests this provides meaningful upside beyond base pay for many technical roles.
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Parental & Family Support — Parental leave spans 20–24 weeks with post-leave flexibility, alongside generous fertility coverage and family planning support. Feedback suggests these programs materially support caregivers and families.
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Healthcare Strength — Health, dental, and vision insurance are comprehensive and include mental healthcare support. Feedback suggests overall medical coverage is strong and part of a broader wellbeing focus.
OpenAI Insights
What We Do
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core. OpenAI is dedicated to putting that alignment of interests first — ahead of profit. To achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. Our investment in diversity, equity, and inclusion is ongoing, executed through a wide range of initiatives, and championed and supported by leadership. 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.
