# Software Engineer, Core Network Engineering

**Company:** [OpenAI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/openai)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** DevOps / SRE
**Salary:** $230k – $342k/yr
**Skills:** Linux Networking, Rdma, InfiniBand, Roce, Dpdk, C++, Python, Go, Kubernetes, Ethernet
**Posted:** 2026-05-06

> Builds and operates high-performance networking infrastructure for OpenAI's large-scale AI training and inference, focusing on host networking, datacenter fabrics, and WAN systems. Optimizes latency, reliability, and scalability using technologies like RDMA, InfiniBand, and RoCE; requires strong systems programming in C++, Python, or Go.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate networking systems that support large-scale AI training and inference infrastructure
- Improve performance, reliability, and scalability across host networking, datacenter fabrics, and WAN systems
- Develop automation for provisioning, configuration management, validation, upgrades, and lifecycle management of networking infrastructure
- Build tooling and observability systems for network health, performance analysis, debugging, and automated remediation
- Optimize network performance across technologies such as **RDMA**, **RoCE**, **InfiniBand**, **Ethernet**, and high-performance GPU interconnects
- Define and operationalize networking protocols, readiness criteria, and continuous validation systems
- Partner closely with compute, storage, hardware, and infrastructure teams to ensure networking scales predictably with fleet growth
- Contribute to architecture decisions around topology design, capacity planning, failure domains, and network reliability
- Diagnose complex distributed systems and networking issues across large heterogeneous compute environments

## Requirements
- Experience building or operating large-scale networking or distributed systems infrastructure
- Comfortable working close to the hardware/software boundary
- Experience with **Linux networking**, kernel systems, NICs, **RDMA**, or performance-sensitive infrastructure software
- Worked with high-performance networking technologies such as **InfiniBand**, **RoCE**, **DPDK**, or large-scale Ethernet fabrics
- Experience with datacenter networking, WAN systems, or host networking stacks
- Enjoy debugging complex systems and performance bottlenecks across multiple layers of the stack
- Comfortable writing production software in languages such as **C++**, **Python**, or **Go**
- Strong systems fundamentals across networking, operating systems, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering

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