Networking Operating System Firmware Engineer

About this 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.

ROLE SUMMARY

We are seeking a Networking Operating System Firmware Engineer to help bootstrap and scale the switching layer of our AI supercomputers. In this role, you will build and maintain custom NOS images from scratch, using open source components from SONiC, SAI, FRR, and related networking stacks while working across the Linux kernel, switch ASIC SAI/SDKs, platform drivers, control-plane services, and orchestration layers.

This is a software engineering role that requires a deep understanding of networking, NOS internals, switch hardware, and production systems. You will design, implement, test, and debug production NOS software across platform drivers, routing and control-plane state, ASIC programming, observability, and fleet integration. The engineer in this role should be able to work through ambiguous, open-ended technical problems and drive feature development across software, hardware, and vendor boundaries.

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

• Design, develop, and maintain custom NOS images for large-scale AI fabrics, using open source components from SONiC, FRR, and related networking stacks.

• Integrate, build and configure Linux kernel components, device drivers, switch ASIC SDKs, and SAI layers.