Full Stack Software Engineer, API Experience

Full Stack Engineer · Mid · Full Time

New York CityUSD 293k – 385k1mo ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Join OpenAI's API Experience team to build the next generation of developer-facing products that serve millions of developers worldwide. As a Full Stack Software Engineer, you'll own end-to-end projects spanning frontend product surfaces, backend systems, SDK pipelines, and API workflows while collaborating with product, design, and research teams to make complex AI capabilities simple and safe to deploy. This role requires 5+ years of production engineering experience with strong TypeScript and React expertise, backend proficiency, and demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous developer problems into elegant product solutions.

Responsibilities

  • Build and Scale Developer Products: Build and scale production-ready developer-facing products including the OpenAI API Playground, interactive documentation experiences, onboarding flows, code examples, and API workflow tools that serve millions of developers globally.
  • Full Stack Project Ownership: Own complete full stack projects end-to-end, from initial product definition and UX collaboration through backend implementation, API integration, product launch, metrics collection, and continuous iteration based on user feedback.
  • SDK and Documentation Infrastructure: Improve and maintain systems that generate, publish, and manage SDKs across multiple programming languages, API references, technical guides, developer examples, and documentation pipelines to ensure consistency and accuracy.
  • Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner closely with API engineering, research, design, and infrastructure teams to translate new model capabilities and API primitives into clear, accessible, and usable interfaces for developers of varying skill levels.
  • Developer Experience Optimization: Analyze developer feedback, product analytics, and direct customer insights to identify friction points, accessibility gaps, and reliability issues in the API experience, then drive improvements through data-informed decisions.
  • Technical Leadership: Help set technical and product direction for a new NYC-based team with broad ownership over OpenAI's developer experience platform, contributing to architecture decisions and engineering best practices.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • TypeScript and React

    Strong, hands-on experience with TypeScript and modern React development patterns, including state management, component architecture, hooks, and building scalable frontend applications.

  • Backend Language Proficiency

    Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, Node.js/TypeScript, or similar, with demonstrated ability to design and implement production backend services.

  • Production API Design and Implementation

    Proven experience designing, building, and operating production-grade APIs, microservices, databases, and developer tooling with focus on reliability, performance, and scalability.

  • Full Stack Development

    Demonstrated ability to work across the full technology stack, from frontend user interfaces to backend systems, database design, API architecture, and infrastructure considerations.

  • Developer Tools and Platform Experience

    Experience building developer tools, documentation systems, SDKs, API design frameworks, or technical content pipelines is highly valuable.

Education

  • Computer Science or Related Field

    Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating mastery of computer science fundamentals.

Experience

  • 5+ Years Production Engineering

    Minimum 5 years of professional software engineering experience (excluding internships) in product-driven engineering teams, with demonstrated impact on shipping features and services to production.

  • Product Judgment and Problem Solving

    Track record of strong product judgment with ability to transform loosely defined or ambiguous developer problems into simple, elegant, and high-quality product experiences that users love.

  • Cross-functional Collaboration

    Comfort and experience working across multiple disciplines including product management, design, engineering, research, and external developer communities to gather feedback and iterate.

  • Production System Ownership

    Experience owning or co-owning production systems with responsibility for reliability, performance, accessibility, and maintainability, including monitoring, debugging, and iterative improvements.

  • Fast-Paced Environment

    Ability to thrive in rapidly moving environments with loosely defined problems, evolving priorities, and the need to make decisions with incomplete information.

Skills

Required

  • TypeScript

    Strong proficiency in TypeScript with production experience building scalable web applications and understanding of advanced type system features.

  • React

    Deep experience building modern React applications with understanding of component lifecycle, hooks, state management libraries, and performance optimization techniques.

  • Backend Development

    Production-level experience with at least one backend language (Python, Go, Rust, Node.js) and ability to architect and implement backend systems.

  • API Design and Development

    Experience designing RESTful or GraphQL APIs, implementing API endpoints, and understanding API security, versioning, and backward compatibility concerns.

  • Database Design

    Understanding of database design principles, SQL query optimization, schema design, and experience with both relational and non-relational databases.

  • Full Stack Architecture

    Ability to architect end-to-end systems connecting frontend applications to backend services, APIs, and data layers.

Preferred

  • Documentation Systems

    Nice to have

    Experience building, maintaining, or working with documentation platforms, documentation-as-code tools, or API documentation generators.

  • SDK Development

    Nice to have

    Experience designing or maintaining software development kits (SDKs) across multiple programming languages or platforms.

  • Developer Tools and Platforms

    Nice to have

    Background building tools, IDEs, playgrounds, or platforms specifically designed for developer productivity and experience.

  • Machine Learning and AI

    Nice to have

    Interest in and familiarity with AI/ML concepts, even without direct ML engineering experience. Understanding of how AI models work and their capabilities is valuable.

  • Analytics and Metrics

    Nice to have

    Experience using product analytics tools, defining meaningful metrics, and making data-driven product decisions.

  • Frontend Performance

    Nice to have

    Knowledge of web performance optimization, loading strategies, and creating fast, responsive user interfaces.

  • Accessibility

    Nice to have

    Commitment to accessible web development practices (WCAG compliance, semantic HTML, keyboard navigation) and building inclusive products.

Tech stack

Languages

TypeScriptPythonGoRustJavaScript/Node.js

Frameworks

ReactNext.jsFastAPI

Databases

PostgreSQLRedis

Tools

GitDockerKubernetesCI/CD Systems

Other

REST API DesignGraphQLSDK Generation and MaintenanceAPI DocumentationDeveloper Experience (DX)

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·USD 293,000 – 385,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Equity and Stock Options

    Competitive equity packages as part of OpenAI's mission-driven organization, enabling engineers to participate in the company's growth and success.

  • Comprehensive Health Coverage

    Medical, dental, and vision insurance plans with employer contributions to support your and your family's wellbeing.

  • 401(k) Retirement Plan

    Employer-matched 401(k) retirement savings plan with competitive matching contribution to help you plan for your financial future.

  • Professional Development

    Learning budgets, conference attendance support, and internal training programs to develop new skills and stay current with technology trends.

  • Flexible Work Environment

    Collaborative office environment with flexibility to support your working preferences and life circumstances in a modern, well-equipped workspace.

  • Paid Time Off

    Generous vacation, sick leave, and personal time policies to maintain work-life balance and support your wellbeing.

  • Mental Health Support

    Employee assistance programs and mental health resources to support your psychological wellbeing and resilience.

  • Parental Benefits

    Parental leave and family support benefits to help you navigate major life transitions and new family responsibilities.

Process

Interview steps.

  1. 01

    Initial Screening

    Brief conversation with a recruiter to discuss your background, experience, interest in the API Experience team, and overall fit with OpenAI's mission and culture.

  2. 02

    Technical Phone Screen

    Focused discussion with an engineer covering your technical experience, specific projects you've owned, system design approach, and problem-solving methodology relevant to full stack development.

  3. 03

    Product and Design Collaboration Round

    Conversation with a product manager or designer to assess your product judgment, ability to understand developer needs, collaboration style, and examples of how you've influenced product decisions.

  4. 04

    Take-Home Technical Project

    A hands-on coding project that simulates real work challenges on the API Experience team, typically involving frontend components, backend logic, and full stack integration across multiple layers.

  5. 05

    Technical Interview - Architecture

    Deep dive with engineers into your system design approach, discussing how you'd architect the API Playground, documentation systems, or similar large-scale developer-facing products.

  6. 06

    Behavioral and Values Alignment

    Discussion with team members about working in cross-functional environments, handling ambiguous requirements, thriving in fast-paced settings, and alignment with OpenAI's mission and values.

  7. 07

    Final Team Meeting

    Meeting with the API Experience team leadership and potential direct managers to discuss the role, team dynamics, your career growth opportunities, and long-term vision for the developer platform.

Full posting

Original listing.

About the Team

OpenAI’s API Platform organization builds the products and infrastructure that help first-party and third-party developers build with OpenAI models. We ship the API primitives, tools, SDKs, documentation, playgrounds, and platform experiences that make OpenAI’s capabilities reliable, understandable, and useful in production.

The API Experience team is focused on the end-to-end developer experience for the OpenAI API. We own the surfaces developers touch every day: docs, SDKs, the Playground, examples, onboarding flows, and the systems that help developers go from first request to production deployment quickly and confidently.

About the Role

We’re looking for full stack and frontend engineers to help define and build the next generation of OpenAI’s developer experience. In this role, you’ll work across frontend product surfaces, backend systems, SDK and documentation pipelines, and API workflows that serve millions of developers and companies.

You’ll partner closely with product, design, research, API engineering, and developer-facing teams to make complex AI capabilities simple to understand, easy to test, and safe to launch in real-world applications. This is a highly cross-functional role for someone who cares deeply about craft, developer empathy, reliability, and product velocity.

In this role, you will:

  • Build and scale developer-facing products including the OpenAI API Playground, documentation experiences, onboarding flows, examples, and API workflow tools.

  • Own full stack projects end to end, from product definition and UX collaboration through backend implementation, launch, measurement, and iteration.

  • Improve the systems that generate, maintain, and publish SDKs, API references, docs, guides, and developer examples.

  • Partner with API, research, design, and infrastructure teams to bring new model capabilities and API primitives to developers in a clear, usable way.

  • Use developer feedback, product analytics, and direct customer insight to identify friction and improve the API experience.

  • Help set technical and product direction for a new NYC-based team with broad ownership over OpenAI’s developer experience.

Your background might look something like:

  • 5+ years of professional engineering experience, excluding internships, in product-driven engineering teams.

  • Strong experience with TypeScript, React, and modern web application development.

  • Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, or similar.

  • Experience designing, building, and operating production APIs, services, databases, or developer tooling.

  • Strong product judgment and a track record of turning ambiguous developer problems into simple, high-quality product experiences.

  • Experience with documentation systems, SDKs, API design, developer tools, or technical content pipelines is a strong plus.

  • Comfort working across product, design, engineering, research, and external developer feedback loops.

  • Care for reliability, performance, accessibility, and maintainability in production systems.

  • Interest in AI and developer platforms; direct ML experience is helpful but not required.

  • Ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment with loosely defined problems and competing priorities.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

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