Host Systems Software Engineer

About the role

About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. Building on efforts like Jalapeño, the team is developing future generations of AI-native silicon and tightly integrated systems to power the next generation of frontier models. By co-designing chips, systems, tools, and methodologies, the team helps deliver faster, more efficient, and production-ready hardware for OpenAI’s supercomputing platform.

About the Role We’re looking for an experienced systems software engineer to help define and build the host software stack for our custom next-generation AI systems. You will work close to the hardware on performance-critical software, including Linux kernel drivers, high-throughput I/O paths, and system-scale networking and RDMA.

This role spans architecture, implementation, platform bring-up, debugging, and performance optimization. You will work across hardware and software boundaries to make new systems usable end to end, from low-level device interfaces through userspace tooling and production validation.

In this role you will:

- Design, implement, and debug host-side systems software for AI infrastructure, including Linux kernel drivers and supporting userspace components.

- Build and optimize software paths for high-throughput, low-latency communication, including RDMA and related networking functionality.

- Develop software around PCIe, DMA, NICs, accelerators, memory movement, and device interaction.

- Bring up new hardware platforms and diagnose complex issues across kernel, firmware, networking, and hardware boundaries.

- Build tooling for integration, testing, diagnostics, observability, qualification, and performance characterization.

- Collaborate with hardware, networking, and platform teams to define interfaces and integrate new capabilities.

- Work with external vendors where needed to integrate technologies and drive issues to resolution.

- Contribute across the systems software stack as the platform and team evolve.

- Help shape the technical direction and engineering practices for a growing systems software stack.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

- Experience building low-level or performance-critical systems software.

- Strong programming skills in C or C++, with proficiency using Python and Linux tooling for automation and debugging.

- Strong Linux systems fundamentals and the ability to debug across hardware and software boundaries.

- Hands-on experience in at least one relevant area, such as Linux kernel drivers, kernel networking, RDMA, PCIe, DMA, NIC software, accelerator software, or high-performance I/O.

- Experience owning complex software projects from design through implementation, bring-up, and validation.

- Ability to thrive in ambiguity, work across subsystem boundaries, and build systems from scratch.