# Software Engineer, Privacy Engineering

**Company:** [OpenAI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/openai)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Fullstack Engineering
**Salary:** $293k – $405k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** backend engineering, Data Pipelines, privacy engineering, security controls, audit trails, least-privilege access, production services, data-intensive systems
**Posted:** 2026-07-23

> Build backend systems, data pipelines, and internal tools to support lawful data access requests and legal operations at OpenAI. Requires strong backend fundamentals, privacy/security reasoning, and experience turning ambiguous legal requirements into reliable, auditable systems.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate backend systems and workflow tooling for the full lifecycle of lawful data access requests, from intake and scoping through authorized retrieval, review, preparation, and audit.
- Build reliable data pipelines and interfaces across products and data stores so authorized teams can locate and handle the right records accurately and reproducibly.
- Implement least-privilege access, approval gates, provenance, audit trails, data minimization, and safe failure modes for sensitive workflows.
- Partner with Legal and Legal Operations to translate legal and operational requirements into clear technical designs and intuitive operator experiences.
- Identify responsible automation opportunities that reduce repetitive work while preserving human review, judgment, and accountability.
- Own production systems through testing, observability, incident response, documentation, and continuous reliability improvements.
- Help define the architecture and roadmap for reusable privacy and legal-infrastructure foundations as OpenAI’s products and obligations evolve.

## Requirements
- Strong backend engineering fundamentals and experience building production services or data-intensive systems.
- Ability to reason carefully about correctness, authorization, security, and privacy when working with sensitive data.
- A track record of turning ambiguous requirements into pragmatic plans and communicating technical tradeoffs clearly.
- End-to-end ownership, including operating what you build, and comfort learning unfamiliar products and domains.
- Care for operator experience and a drive to make complex workflows safer, clearer, and more efficient.
- Experience collaborating across Engineering, Legal, operations, Privacy, and Security stakeholders.

## Nice-to-Haves
- Experience building or operating systems for lawful data access requests and understand the domain’s legal-process lifecycle, privacy and security constraints, auditability requirements, and operational sensitivities.

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