OpenAI

Software Engineer, Codex — User Activation

OpenAI6 days ago
Location

San Francisco

Type

Full Time

Salary

USD 230,000 – 385,000

Level

Mid

Role

Full Stack Engineer

Posted

Jul 13, 2026

Full TimeMid

The role

Summary

Join OpenAI's Codex team as a Full Stack Software Engineer focused on User Activation, where you'll build the product experiences that drive adoption of an AI software engineering teammate across enterprises. This role combines frontend polish with robust backend architecture to create onboarding, discovery, collaboration, and activation surfaces that help developers and teams seamlessly integrate Codex into their workflows. You'll work across the full development stack—web, IDEs, CLI, and integrations—partnering with product, design, research, and customers to transform adoption challenges into scalable, data-driven solutions.

What you'll do

Build Onboarding and Discovery Experiences: Design and implement intuitive onboarding flows that enable developers to quickly connect Codex to their repositories, development tools, environments, and existing workflows. Create discovery surfaces including plugins, skills, integrations, templates, recommendations, and strategic workflow entry points that help users understand and leverage Codex capabilities.
Develop Collaborative Team Systems: Engineer full-featured collaborative experiences including workspace setup, team invitations, sharing mechanisms, team-level configuration controls, and usage visibility dashboards that facilitate adoption across organizations and remove barriers to team-wide deployment.
Implement Full-Stack Product Architecture: Architect and build scalable systems spanning web applications, IDE extensions, command-line interfaces, and third-party integrations while balancing polished user experience with production-grade backend reliability, performance, and data consistency.
Execute Data-Driven Product Iteration: Partner with product and design teams to design and run A/B experiments, analyze activation funnels, identify adoption blockers, instrument analytics, and rapidly iterate based on quantified user behavior and engagement metrics.
Translate Customer Insights into Product Features: Work directly with customers, go-to-market teams, and Forward Deployed Engineers to understand real-world adoption challenges, translate ambiguous customer problems into clear technical requirements, and build scalable solutions that drive organizational adoption.
Define Activation Best Practices: Contribute to establishing what excellent onboarding, discovery, and activation experiences look like for an AI-powered software engineering teammate, setting product standards and patterns that guide future feature development.
Collaborate Across Disciplines: Work seamlessly with product managers, designers, researchers, infrastructure engineers, GTM specialists, and customer success teams to ensure technical decisions support business objectives and product strategy.

What we look for

Technical

Full-Stack Web DevelopmentProduction-grade experience building both frontend and backend systems with demonstrated ability to make thoughtful architectural trade-offs between user experience and system reliability.
Frontend TechnologiesProficiency with modern frontend frameworks and libraries, particularly React, TypeScript, and related web technologies for building responsive, performant user interfaces.
Backend DevelopmentStrong backend engineering skills using languages such as Python, Go, or similar systems, with experience building scalable APIs, services, and systems that handle production traffic.
API Design and IntegrationExperience designing and implementing REST or GraphQL APIs, building integrations with external services, IDE plugins/extensions, and CLI tooling.
Analytics and ExperimentationFamiliarity with event-driven analytics, funnel analysis, A/B testing frameworks, and using data to inform product decisions.
Production OperationsExperience with monitoring, logging, error tracking, performance profiling, and operational best practices for maintaining reliable production systems.

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related FieldFormal education in computer science, software engineering, mathematics, or a closely related field is typically expected, though equivalent practical experience may be considered.

Experience

4-7 Years Full-Stack DevelopmentProven track record of designing and shipping production-grade full-stack systems that thousands or millions of users rely on.
Product-Focused EngineeringExperience building onboarding, activation, growth, collaboration, discovery, or developer-centric product experiences with measurable user adoption and engagement outcomes.
Cross-Functional CollaborationDemonstrated ability to work effectively across product, design, engineering, analytics, and customer-facing teams in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
Rapid Iteration in AmbiguityProven success shipping features quickly in early-stage (0-to-1) product environments, navigating uncertainty, and applying strong product judgment to technical decisions.

Skills

Required skills

ReactAdvanced proficiency building modern web UIs with React, including component architecture, state management, hooks, and performance optimization for interactive applications.
TypeScriptStrong TypeScript skills for type-safe frontend development, including interfaces, generics, and understanding of advanced type system concepts.
Python or GoProficiency with either Python or Go for backend services development, API implementation, and systems-level programming.
Full-Stack ArchitectureAbility to design end-to-end systems considering frontend performance, backend scalability, API design, database schema, and operational requirements.
Data-Driven Product DevelopmentComfortable using analytics, experimentation, and user feedback to guide product decisions and validate feature hypotheses.
User Experience Design ThinkingDeep care for user experience with ability to translate ambiguous customer problems into simple, intuitive product flows that prioritize developer needs.

Nice to have

IDE Plugin/Extension DevelopmentExperience building extensions for VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, or other development environments, understanding IDE architecture and plugin APIs.
CLI DevelopmentBackground developing command-line interfaces and tools, including argument parsing, streaming output, interactive prompts, and integration patterns.
GraphQL or Advanced API DesignExperience designing complex APIs that serve multiple clients (web, mobile, CLI) with sophisticated query patterns or subscriptions.
Enterprise SaaS ExperienceBackground building features for enterprise software with consideration for workspace management, team collaboration, permissions, audit logging, and compliance.
AI/ML Product IntegrationExperience integrating machine learning models or AI services into user-facing products and understanding the unique challenges of AI-powered features.
Growth and Activation MetricsFamiliarity with key activation metrics, funnel analysis, retention cohorts, and designing features specifically optimized for user adoption.
Observability and TelemetryExperience instrumenting applications with comprehensive logging, metrics, and tracing to monitor system health and user behavior in production.

Compensation & benefits

Salary

USD 230,000 – 385,000 (annual)

Stock options

Available

Benefits

Equity and Stock Options

Competitive equity grants that give you ownership and upside in OpenAI's mission-driven organization.

Comprehensive Health Insurance

Medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family with OpenAI covering a significant portion of premiums.

401(k) Retirement Plan

Tax-advantaged retirement savings program with company matching to support long-term financial planning.

Unlimited PTO

Flexible time-off policy recognizing that sustained performance requires genuine rest and personal time.

Professional Development

Access to learning resources, conferences, training programs, and opportunities to grow skills in AI and emerging technologies.

Mental Health and Wellness

Comprehensive mental health support, wellness programs, and resources for work-life balance and employee wellbeing.

Parental Leave

Generous parental leave benefits supporting new parents in balancing career and family.

Home Office Equipment

Support for remote work setup including computer equipment and technology needed for productive development.

Interview process

  1. 1
    Initial Recruiter Screening — Phone or video call with OpenAI recruiter to discuss your background, experience with full-stack development, and interest in the Codex User Activation mission.
  2. 2
    Technical Phone Screen — Discussion with a senior engineer covering full-stack fundamentals, systems design thinking, and approach to building product experiences that balance UX and engineering rigor.
  3. 3
    Product and Design Collaboration Discussion — Conversation focused on how you think about user experience, product-market fit, and collaboration across engineering, design, and product teams in fast-moving environments.
  4. 4
    Technical System Design Interview — Detailed architectural discussion designing a system similar in scope to Codex activation features, including frontend-backend integration, scalability considerations, and data-driven iteration patterns.
  5. 5
    Behavioral and Team Fit Interview — Discussion exploring how you navigate ambiguity, make technical trade-offs, work across disciplines, and contribute to team culture and psychological safety.
  6. 6
    Leadership and OpenAI Values Alignment — Final conversation with a manager or senior leader assessing alignment with OpenAI's mission, values around AI safety and responsible deployment, and long-term career goals.
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OpenAI

OpenAI

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OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence research organization developing advanced AI models like GPT. Focused on ensuring AI benefits humanity, it creates tools for natural language processing and generative AI applications.

San Francisco, California, United StatesFounded 2015openai.com

Tech Stack

Languages
TypeScriptPythonGoJavaScript
Frameworks
ReactNext.jsFastAPIgRPC
Databases
PostgreSQLRedisFirebase
Tools
Git and GitHubDocker and KubernetesCI/CD PipelinesDatadog, New Relic, or Similar APMA/B Testing Frameworks
Other
REST and GraphQL APIsEvent-Driven ArchitectureIDE Plugin ArchitectureCLI DevelopmentOAuth 2.0 and Enterprise Authentication

Interview Guides

5 guides available for OpenAI

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