Description
Software Engineer, Monetization Product & Platform (SF/Seattle)
Location
San Francisco
Employment Type
Full time
Department
Applied AI
Compensation
- $230K – $385K • Offers Equity
The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non-exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
- Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
- 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
- Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
- Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
- 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
- Mental health and wellness support
- Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
- Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
- Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
- Relocation support for eligible employees
- Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.
More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.
This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.
About the Team
The Monetization team is a new cross-functional group working across engineering, product, research, and design to build the foundational systems that will help OpenAI scale access to intelligence responsibly. Our mission is to develop user-first, privacy-preserving monetization products—including next-generation ads experiences—that strengthen user trust, unlock economic opportunity, and support OpenAI’s long-term innovation.
Monetization plays a critical role in enabling OpenAI to continue pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities while ensuring the benefits of AGI are broadly shared. We believe monetization must be aligned with user value, uphold rigorous privacy and safety standards, and sustain a healthy ecosystem of developers and businesses.
This team operates in a greenfield environment and moves quickly through prototyping, experimentation, and iterative deployment. We partner closely with Product, Design, and Research to bring research breakthroughs into real-world systems at global scale.
About the Role
We’re looking for an experienced Software Engineer to help build the core monetization and ads systems at OpenAI. This is a foundational role responsible for designing and implementing the infrastructure, APIs, and user-facing experiences that will power OpenAI’s next-generation monetization products—including ads.
You’ll work across the full technical stack to architect, build, and ship 0→1 systems that are robust, safe, and scalable. You will collaborate deeply with Product, Design, and Research to define the future of monetized AI experiences and ensure these systems meet OpenAI’s highest standards for safety, privacy, and policy alignment.
This role is exclusively based across our San Francisco and Seattle sites. We offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will:
- Design, build, and scale the core infrastructure behind OpenAI’s monetization and ads products
- Develop advertiser-facing APIs and tools that enable the creation, management, and measurement of ads
- Build integrations with external partners and help create enterprise-grade monetization products
- Architect distributed systems and services that operate at massive scale with strong reliability, usability, privacy, and performance guarantees
- Work closely with Product, Research, and Design to translate product requirements into high-quality technical solutions
- Drive 0→1 product development through rapid prototyping, experimentation, and iterative deployment
- Contribute to technical strategy, propose new directions, and help shape the roadmap for monetization and ads platforms
- Maintain high engineering rigor through strong testing, documentation, and operational best practices
- Uphold the highest levels of safety, privacy, fairness, and policy compliance across all monetization systems
- Help continuously refine engineering processes, culture, and best practices within a fast-moving, multidisciplinary team
You might thrive in this role if you:
- Have 7+ years of experience building high-scale consumer, enterprise, or ads-related systems
- Have a track record of architecting and delivering complex distributed systems with high reliability and performance requirements
- Are comfortable navigating ambiguous product spaces and contributing to technical roadmaps and long-term direction
- Bring strong product intuition and enjoy collaborating deeply with Product, Design, and Research
- Thrive in 0→1 environments where systems, architecture, and user experiences must be defined from scratch
- Communicate clearly, think holistically, and make decisions rooted in both user needs and long-term sustainability
- Are motivated by building privacy-preserving, safe, and user-first monetization systems
- Bonus: Have experience in ads systems, marketing, or related fields