Software Engineer, Foundations Retrieval
About the Team The Foundations Research team works on high-risk, high-reward ideas that could shape the next decade of AI. Our goal is to advance the science and data that enable our training and scaling efforts, with a particular focus on future frontier models.
What this role actually needs.
About the Team The Foundations Research team works on high-risk, high-reward ideas that could shape the next decade of AI. Our goal is to advance the science and data that enable our training and scaling efforts, with a particular focus on future frontier models. 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. Company context: OpenAI builds frontier AI systems, research infrastructure, and applied products for developers, enterprises, and global users.
Day-to-day expectations
OpenAI lists these responsibilities for the Software Engineer, Foundations Retrieval role.
- 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.
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Software Engineer, Foundations Retrieval is framed against UpJobz source checks, country scope, compensation visibility, and work-authorization signals so candidates can make a faster go/no-go decision.
United States tech market
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On-site roles in San Francisco should be compared against commute, local salary bands, and nearby employer demand.
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Source: jobs.ashbyhq.com · Source ID: 40ed6975-ef61-4807-b748-37c2fa2b76c7 · Confidence: 97/100 · Last checked: May 7, 2026
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