Research Engineer, Retrieval & Search, Applied Engineering

Reposted One Month Ago
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San Francisco, CA, USA
In-Office
Mid level
Artificial Intelligence • Machine Learning • Generative AI
The Role
The Research Engineer will develop retrieval and search algorithms for OpenAI's API and ChatGPT, focusing on scalability and user experience.
Summary Generated by Built In

About the Team

We bring OpenAI's technology to the world through products like ChatGPT and the OpenAI API.

We seek to learn from deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this powerful tool is used responsibly and safely. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth.

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Research Engineer to work on retrieval & search problems across our API and ChatGPT. As the AI landscape has evolved over the last few years, retrieval & search have emerged as key use cases for our models, and we are investing in ensuring that we can offer these search-based product experiences for our users. You will be at the center of our retrieval & search efforts as a company, and the progress you drive here will reach millions of end users.

In this role, you will:

  • Work on retrieval & search algorithms and methodologies in close collaboration with our research team, including problems in such domains as document search, enterprise search, knowledge retrieval, and web-scale search.

  • Deploy these search methodologies into production in both the API and ChatGPT to be used by millions of end users.

  • Explore novel research topics in retrieval & search that may inform our product strategy in the medium and long term.

  • Partner with researchers, engineers, product managers, and designers to bring new features and research capabilities to the world

You might thrive in this role if you:

  • Have extensive prior experience building and maintaining production machine learning systems.

  • Have prior experience working with vector databases, search indices, or other data stores for search and retrieval use cases

  • Have prior experience building and iterating on internet-scale search systems

  • Own problems end-to-end, and are willing to pick up whatever knowledge you're missing to get the job done

  • Have the ability to move fast in an environment where things are sometimes loosely defined and may have competing priorities or deadlines

.

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

  • Extensive prior experience building and maintaining production machine learning systems
  • Prior experience working with vector databases, search indices, or other data stores
  • Prior experience building internet-scale search systems

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.

  • Parental & Family Support Policies include 24 weeks of paid leave for birth parents and 20 weeks for non‑birth parents, plus fertility and family‑planning coverage. Additional flexibility such as the option to work from home for several weeks after parental leave reinforces family support.
  • Healthcare Strength Health coverage is positioned as competitive and tailored by location, with dedicated mental‑health support and services alongside life and AD&D insurance. Global business‑travel insurance for employees and dependents extends protection beyond core medical care.
  • Equity Value & Accessibility Equity has delivered tangible value through multiple tender offers that have enabled employees to realize liquidity at strong valuations. A shift toward more conventional RSU‑style grants for newer offers makes the equity more familiar for many candidates.

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The Company
HQ: San Francisco, CA
4,500 Employees
Year Founded: 2015

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.

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