Research Engineer, Focused Bets

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About the Team The Strategic Deployment team makes frontier models more capable, reliable, and aligned to transform high-impact domains. On one hand, this involves deploying models in real-world, high-stakes settings to drive AI-driven transformation and elicit insights—training data, evaluation methods, and techniques—to shape our frontier model development. On the other hand, we leverage these learning to build the science and engineering of impactful frontier model deployment. Put differently, we want to understand: if AGI is viewed as AI being able to majorly transform our economy, how close are we to AGI? What’s still missing? How do we bridge these gaps?
About the Role As a Research Engineer on the Focused Bets effort in the Strategic Deployment team , you will help OpenAI identify real-world domains that are ripe for transformation through frontier AI capabilities. You’ll act as a technical lead and hands-on builder, partnering with subject matter experts to understand the key aspects of a given domain, pinpointing the most critical tasks in that domain, and developing technical proofs-of-concept that build conviction driving OpenAI’s strategic engagements. We’re looking for people who combine a strong machine learning background with an entrepreneurial mindset—engineers who can thrive in ambiguity, quickly iterate toward the signal, and adapt their approach as new insights emerge. You should be deeply curious about where AI can (and can’t yet) have impact, and excited to push the boundaries of what’s possible. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: Drive research and prototyping sprints into specific domains in collaboration with domain experts.
Translate real-world tasks into tractable ML/engineering problems and develop proof-of-concept solutions using OpenAI models and tools.
Deliver working demos, run in-the-wild evaluations, and distill insights into actionable guidance for OpenAI’s research and deployment teams.
You might thrive in this role if you: Care about real-world impact of AI.
Are excited to drive how frontier models are developed and deployed.
Have hands-on experience in AI research, systems, or applied science.
Are excited by startup-style ambiguity and enjoy working across disciplines to drive a project from zero to one.
Enjoy working in open-ended problem spaces and high-feedback environments.
Are a curious, adaptable generalist who enjoys learning fast, asking deep questions, and solving open-ended problems.
Apply
Location:
San Francisco

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