Software Engineer, Plugin Developer Platform
Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time
Opens OpenAI's application page
Role
What you'll do.
Join OpenAI's Plugin Developer Platform team to build the APIs, SDKs, and tools that power ChatGPT and Codex extensibility. This role focuses on creating developer-friendly platforms, open standards like the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and interactive applications that enable developers to build AI-powered extensions. You'll design and ship platform infrastructure while collaborating directly with developers, partners, and the open-source community to shape how software gets built for AI agents.
Responsibilities
- API and SDK Design & Delivery: Design, architect, and ship production-grade APIs, SDKs, and backend services that empower developers to extend ChatGPT and Codex with custom plugins. Focus on creating intuitive developer experiences that reduce friction in the plugin creation lifecycle, from initial conception through production deployment.
- Plugin Platform Optimization: Streamline the entire plugin development workflow by improving creation tools, testing frameworks, publishing mechanisms, and update distribution systems. Work on reducing deployment complexity and enabling seamless plugin management across ChatGPT and Codex ecosystems.
- Cross-Platform Compatibility & Integration: Enhance consistency and interoperability between ChatGPT and Codex, including interactive app experiences and plugin execution environments. Ensure reliable plugin performance across different deployment contexts and product surfaces.
- Open Standards Contribution: Actively contribute to the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and other industry open standards, translating real-world developer needs into practical specification design. Bridge the gap between theoretical standards and production requirements.
- Developer Advocacy & Feedback Integration: Engage directly with external developers, partners, and open-source communities to identify pain points, gather feature requests, and understand emerging use cases. Translate qualitative feedback into prioritized platform improvements and architectural decisions.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Product, Research, Security, and Trust & Safety teams to implement robust permissions models, ensure compliance requirements, and maintain safe and reliable plugin execution. Balance developer experience with security and system reliability.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Backend Systems Architecture
Deep expertise designing and implementing scalable backend systems, APIs, and distributed services. Experience building platform infrastructure that other developers rely on, including production-grade service design and system reliability.
API Design & Developer Experience
Demonstrated ability to design intuitive, well-documented APIs and SDKs with strong developer experience principles. Proven track record of making complex systems accessible to external developers through thoughtful abstraction and clear documentation.
Full-Stack Platform Engineering
Comfortable working across web interfaces, backend systems, and infrastructure components. Ability to understand and contribute to multiple layers of a platform stack, from frontend developer tools to backend execution environments.
Software Design Patterns & Abstractions
Strong opinions and communication skills regarding API design choices, architectural patterns, and technical tradeoffs. Ability to articulate the reasoning behind design decisions and navigate competing priorities.
Education
Computer Science or Related Field
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating mastery of core computer science concepts.
Experience
Developer-Focused Software Development
5+ years of experience building software products specifically designed for developer consumption. This may include open-source projects with substantial adoption, commercial APIs or SDKs, developer platforms, internal tools with real user bases, or experience at devtools companies.
Platform & Infrastructure Development
Experience designing, building, and maintaining platform abstractions that abstract complexity while enabling extensibility. Understanding of how to evolve platforms without breaking existing integrations.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Demonstrated ability to navigate between technical implementation and product strategy. Experience identifying what matters in unclear problem statements and driving work from concept through production release.
Skills
Required
API Design & Development
Expertise in designing RESTful or GraphQL APIs, SDK development, and creating developer-friendly interfaces. Understanding of versioning strategies, backward compatibility, and API evolution.
Backend Programming Languages
Production-level proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, JavaScript/Node.js, Java, or Rust. Strong systems programming fundamentals and knowledge of concurrency patterns.
Distributed Systems & Architecture
Understanding of service-oriented architecture, microservices patterns, messaging systems, and distributed computing concepts. Experience with scaling challenges and system reliability.
Database Design & Optimization
Experience with both relational and non-relational databases, query optimization, schema design, and understanding of appropriate data store selection for different use cases.
Software Testing & Quality Assurance
Expertise in comprehensive testing strategies including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end testing. Understanding of test automation, CI/CD pipelines, and quality gates.
Open-Source Development
Demonstrated experience contributing to or maintaining open-source projects. Familiarity with collaborative development workflows, community management, and open standards processes.
Cloud Infrastructure & DevOps
Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), and infrastructure-as-code practices.
Preferred
Plugin Architecture & Extension Systems
Nice to havePrior experience designing or working with plugin systems, extension frameworks, or similar architectures that enable third-party developers to extend platforms safely and reliably.
AI/ML Integration Experience
Nice to haveBackground working with machine learning models, LLMs, or AI systems from an infrastructure or integration perspective. Understanding of model serving, prompt engineering workflows, or AI application development.
Standards & Specification Development
Nice to haveExperience contributing to or designing technical standards, RFCs, or industry specifications. Understanding of how standards evolve and how to balance practical implementation needs with theoretical specifications.
Security & Compliance Implementation
Nice to haveFamiliarity with security best practices, permission systems, sandboxing, and compliance requirements relevant to multi-tenant platforms. Understanding of secure API design and data isolation.
Developer Documentation & Education
Nice to haveTrack record of creating exceptional developer documentation, tutorials, and educational content. Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to audiences with varying expertise levels.
DevTools & Developer Experience
Nice to haveExperience building developer tools, CLIs, build systems, or other infrastructure that improves developer productivity and experience. Understanding of developer pain points and tooling best practices.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 185,000 – 490,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Comprehensive Health Coverage
Medical, dental, and vision insurance with company coverage of a significant portion of premiums for employees and eligible dependents.
Equity Compensation
Meaningful stock options or equity grants that align your success with OpenAI's long-term growth and vision, with competitive vesting schedules.
Professional Development
Access to learning resources, conference attendance budgets, and mentorship opportunities with leading AI researchers and engineers.
Flexible Work Arrangement
Hybrid work model with 3 days in-office per week at San Francisco headquarters, providing flexibility while maintaining strong team collaboration.
Relocation Assistance
Comprehensive relocation support for qualified candidates relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, including moving expenses and temporary housing assistance.
Unlimited Paid Time Off
Flexible vacation policy encouraging work-life balance and recovery time for our high-performing engineering teams.
Parental Leave
Generous paid parental leave policies supporting both maternal and paternal leave, typically exceeding industry standards.
401(k) Retirement Plan
Tax-advantaged retirement savings plan with company matching contributions to support long-term financial security.
Commuter Benefits
Pre-tax commuter benefits and subsidies for Bay Area transit, supporting sustainable commuting options for hybrid workers.
Wellness Programs
On-site fitness facilities, wellness initiatives, mental health support services, and wellness stipends for health and fitness activities.
Process
Interview steps.
- 01
Initial Screening Call
Conversation with recruiting team to discuss your background, motivation for OpenAI, and alignment with plugin platform engineering. Expect questions about developer-focused projects you've built and your API design philosophy.
- 02
Technical Phone Screen
One-on-one technical conversation with a senior engineer covering your backend systems knowledge, API design experience, and approach to solving platform challenges. You may discuss trade-offs in architecture decisions and past project learnings.
- 03
System Design Interview
Technical interview focused on designing scalable backend systems or API infrastructure. You'll work through a realistic platform engineering problem, discussing architecture, trade-offs, scalability, and reliability considerations.
- 04
Product & Developer Mindset Interview
Conversation exploring your understanding of developer experience, how you've engaged with developer communities, and your perspective on building platforms people want to use. May include discussing open-source involvement or developer feedback you've incorporated.
- 05
Team & Culture Fit Discussion
Conversation with Plugin Developer Platform team members to assess collaboration style, cross-functional communication ability, and alignment with OpenAI's mission and values.
- 06
Final Executive Round
Conversation with engineering leadership to discuss your career trajectory, long-term vision for your role in platform engineering, and how you see the future of AI agent extensibility.
Full posting
Original listing.
About the Team
The Plugin Developer Platform team builds the APIs, SDKs, and tools that let people extend ChatGPT and Codex. We work on plugins, connectors, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and interactive apps.
We want anyone to be able to turn a useful workflow into a plugin, share it, and have other people use it. A plugin can package instructions and skills with connections to the tools and data it needs. Our work covers plugin creation and publishing, the systems that run plugins across our products, and open standards that developers can build on.
About the Role
We’re looking for platform-minded engineers who know what it takes to build a platform developers want to use. You’ll work across developer-facing interfaces, APIs, and backend systems. You’ll own features from the first developer conversation through implementation and release.
You’ll talk directly with developers, partners, and the open-source community. Their experience will inform the APIs and abstractions you design, the problems you prioritize, and the tradeoffs you make.
This role is based in San Francisco. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
What You’ll Do
Design and ship APIs, SDKs, and services that developers use to extend ChatGPT and Codex.
Make plugins easier to create, test, publish, update, and share.
Improve compatibility and consistency across ChatGPT and Codex, including interactive app experiences.
Contribute to MCP and other open standards, bringing practical developer needs into their design.
Work with developers and partners to understand recurring problems and improve the platform, tooling, and documentation.
Work with Product, Research, Security, and Trust & Safety on permissions, compatibility, and safe, reliable execution.
You Might Thrive Here If You
Have built software that other developers use. Your experience might include an open-source project, an API or SDK, a developer platform, internal tools with real users, or a devtools company.
Have opinions about APIs and abstractions, and can explain the tradeoffs behind your decisions.
Enjoy talking with developers and learning what they are trying to build.
Can move between product questions and technical details, identify what matters, and take work from an unclear problem through to production.
Are comfortable working across web interfaces and backend systems, and learning unfamiliar parts of the stack.
Want to help define how developers build software for AI agents, including through open standards such as MCP.
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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