# Software Engineer, Foundations Retrieval

**Company:** [OpenAI](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/openai)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $380k – $555k/yr
**Skills:** Distributed Systems, Search Systems, Retrieval Systems, Indexing Systems, Embeddings, Ml Systems, Performance Optimization, Kubernetes, Low-Latency Systems, High-Throughput Systems
**Posted:** 2026-04-14

> Software Engineer building and scaling retrieval infrastructure for AI models, including indexing, serving, and query execution systems. Partners with researchers to productionize embedding techniques and supports agentic workflows across OpenAI products.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Build and scale retrieval infrastructure across indexing, serving, and query execution.
- Develop low-latency, high-throughput systems for real-time model interaction.
- Partner with research to productionize embedding and retrieval techniques.
- Support dense, sparse, and hybrid retrieval pipelines.
- Own system performance, reliability, and observability at scale.
- Collaborate across Pretraining, Inference, and Product teams to integrate retrieval end-to-end.
- Contribute to model-system interfaces for agentic workflows.

## Requirements
- Experience building and scaling distributed systems.
- Background in search, retrieval, or indexing systems.
- Familiarity with embedding-based or ML-powered systems.
- Experience with performance optimization and production reliability.
- Ability to work across ML and systems boundaries.
- First-principles thinking in ambiguous problem spaces.

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