# Systems Integration Engineer, Build Systems | Consumer Devices
**Company:** [OpenAI](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/openai)
Join OpenAI's Systems Integration team to design and maintain the build infrastructure and CI systems that power consumer device software deployments. This senior engineering role focuses on Bazel-based builds, Buildkite pipelines, and distributed infrastructure while enabling thousands of developers to ship products rapidly with confidence. You'll own critical developer productivity systems including build caching, test frameworks, and CI automation in a fast-growing organization.
**Role:** DevOps Engineer
**Seniority:** Senior
**Locations:** San Francisco
**Salary:** 293000–325000 USD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/9104a37c-6ae0-499b-a2f7-2785e63b5f0c)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/openai/systems-integration-engineer-build-systems-consumer-devices-9104a37c
---
## Responsibilities

- Own and Evolve Build Workflows: Architect and maintain Bazel and Yocto-based build and test workflows in a polyrepo environment, ensuring hermetic, reproducible builds that teams can confidently adopt across the organization.
- Design and Maintain Build Rules: Create and iterate on Starlark rules, macros, toolchains, and integrations that enhance build reliability and reproducibility while simplifying team adoption and reducing configuration overhead.
- Optimize CI Performance and Reliability: Improve Buildkite pipeline performance across queue time, build time, cache hit rates, retry behavior, and flake isolation to maximize developer productivity and reduce time-to-feedback.
- Implement Intelligent Build Optimization: Build systems that reduce unnecessary CI work through affected-target detection, dependency graph analysis, test selection optimization, smart caching, batching, and intelligent scheduling.
- Unify Development Workflows: Design systems that allow engineers to reproduce CI behavior locally, debug build failures efficiently, and iterate quickly without requiring deep expertise in the entire build infrastructure stack.
- Operate Build Infrastructure: Manage and optimize build infrastructure across Docker/OCI images, Kubernetes-based runners, cloud resources, remote cache/execution systems, and factory hardware to ensure reliability and cost efficiency.
- Instrument Systems with Observability: Build comprehensive metrics, logging, tracing, dashboards, and analytics across build and CI systems to measure speed, reliability, cost, and quantify developer impact of infrastructure improvements.
- Partner with Engineering Teams: Work directly with developers to understand pain points, onboard projects onto new systems, debug complex build issues, and identify and eliminate systemic infrastructure bottlenecks.
- Pioneer AI-Driven Developer Tools: Apply modern AI tools to innovate in CI failure analysis, flaky test debugging, PR triage, automated remediation, and create developer-facing intelligence that accelerates decision-making.
- Ensure Production Reliability: Own the reliability of critical developer and factory infrastructure systems through active participation in on-call rotations and rapid incident response to maintain high SLA standards.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Related Field","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent practical experience demonstrating foundational software engineering and systems design knowledge."}

### technical

- {"name":"Advanced Bazel Expertise","description":"5+ years hands-on experience with Bazel, Buck, Gradle, or equivalent build systems with deep understanding of hermetic builds, dependency graphs, caching strategies, sandboxing mechanisms, and remote execution architectures."}
- {"name":"Large-Scale CI System Design","description":"Proven track record building and operating CI systems at scale in environments where build time, queue time, test flakiness, and developer trust directly impact engineering velocity and product delivery."}
- {"name":"Distributed Infrastructure Debugging","description":"Demonstrated ability to debug complex distributed build and CI failures across source control systems, dependency management, containerization, runners, remote caches, test frameworks, and service infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Starlark and Build Configuration","description":"Proficiency writing and maintaining Starlark code including rules, macros, toolchains, and plugins to create reproducible, maintainable build configurations across polyrepo environments."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes and Container Orchestration","description":"Production experience managing Kubernetes clusters for CI runners and build infrastructure including resource optimization, scheduling, networking, and reliability."}
- {"name":"Infrastructure as Code","description":"Hands-on experience with Terraform, Bazel, or equivalent IaC tools to define, version, and manage build infrastructure in reproducible and auditable ways."}

### experience

- {"name":"Senior Infrastructure Engineering","description":"5+ years of infrastructure and tooling engineering experience with demonstrated impact on developer productivity at scale in organizations managing large codebases."}
- {"name":"Polyrepo Environment Experience","description":"Production experience operating in polyrepo environments with source code from multiple parties, managing coordination and consistency across independent build and deployment pipelines."}
- {"name":"Production Systems Ownership","description":"Comfortable owning production software with strong SLA requirements, understanding trade-offs between velocity and reliability, and maintaining systems under high-stakes usage patterns."}
- {"name":"Developer Experience Focus","description":"Track record identifying and eliminating sources of friction that slow engineering teams, reduce operational toil, and measurably improve developer satisfaction and velocity metrics."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Bazel Build Systems","description":"Expert-level proficiency with Bazel including build file authoring, rule creation, workspace configuration, and optimization for large-scale monorepo and polyrepo environments."}
- {"name":"CI/CD Pipeline Design","description":"Advanced experience designing, implementing, and scaling CI/CD pipelines with focus on build performance, test reliability, and developer feedback loops."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes Administration","description":"Production-grade Kubernetes skills including cluster management, workload orchestration, resource optimization, and troubleshooting in high-volume environments."}
- {"name":"Python or Go Programming","description":"Proficiency writing infrastructure automation, build tooling, and DevOps utilities in Python, Go, or equivalent systems languages."}
- {"name":"Distributed Systems Debugging","description":"Expert troubleshooting of complex distributed systems issues involving multiple layers of infrastructure, networking, caching, and asynchronous execution."}
- {"name":"Linux Systems Administration","description":"Deep Linux expertise including kernel concepts, system performance tuning, containerization, and troubleshooting at scale."}

### preferred

- {"name":"Buildkite CI/CD Platform","description":"Production experience with Buildkite including pipeline configuration, agent management, and optimization for high-throughput CI environments."}
- {"name":"Yocto Build System","description":"Experience with Yocto project or BitBake for embedded Linux builds, particularly in polyrepo or multi-target build environments."}
- {"name":"Remote Execution Systems","description":"Familiarity with remote build execution platforms like Bazel Remote Execution, BuildBarn, or equivalent systems for distributed build optimization."}
- {"name":"Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing","description":"Experience designing or operating hardware-in-the-loop testing infrastructure for embedded systems, device firmware, or hardware-software integration validation."}
- {"name":"AI/ML Application to Infrastructure","description":"Interest and experience applying machine learning techniques to infrastructure problems like failure prediction, flaky test detection, or intelligent resource scheduling."}
- {"name":"Rust or C++ Development","description":"Experience building systems-level tools in Rust or C++ for performance-critical infrastructure components like build orchestration or artifact caching."}
- {"name":"Docker and OCI Standards","description":"Advanced proficiency with Docker, container image optimization, OCI standards, and container supply chain security relevant to build infrastructure."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Terraform","description":"Infrastructure as Code tool for provisioning and managing cloud resources, CI infrastructure, and build system components."}
- {"name":"Docker","description":"Container runtime and image technology for build environment reproducibility, CI runner provisioning, and infrastructure portability."}
- {"name":"Git/Source Control","description":"Version control integration for affected-target detection, dependency analysis, and build optimization strategies."}
- {"name":"Prometheus/Grafana","description":"Observability stack for build and CI system monitoring, metrics collection, and visualization for performance analysis."}
- {"name":"Buildkite Agents","description":"CI runner agents deployed on Kubernetes and dedicated infrastructure for distributed build job execution."}

### others

- {"name":"Remote Execution API","description":"Standard remote execution protocol for distributed build execution, caching, and artifact management in hermetic environments."}
- {"name":"OCI Image Format","description":"Container image specification for build environment consistency, artifact storage, and cloud-native deployment."}
- {"name":"OpenAI AI Tools","description":"Application of modern AI models and tools for automated failure analysis, flaky test detection, and intelligent developer infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Monorepo/Polyrepo Tools","description":"Tools and patterns for managing multiple repositories, coordinating builds, and maintaining build consistency across codebases."}

### databases

- {"name":"Distributed Caching Systems","description":"Remote build caches and artifact storage systems for build optimization, cache serving, and distributed execution support."}
- {"name":"Time-Series Databases","description":"Observability backend systems for storing build metrics, CI telemetry, and performance analytics for dashboard and alerting."}

### languages

- {"name":"Python","description":"Primary infrastructure automation language used for build tooling, CI orchestration, analytics, and developer-facing utilities across the build system."}
- {"name":"Go","description":"Systems language used for performance-critical build infrastructure components, distributed systems tooling, and cloud-native applications."}
- {"name":"TypeScript","description":"Used for developer-facing tooling, web-based CI dashboards, build analytics interfaces, and internal platform tools."}
- {"name":"Starlark","description":"Build configuration language used extensively for writing Bazel rules, macros, and toolchain definitions across the monorepo."}
- {"name":"Rust","description":"Used for high-performance infrastructure components where reliability and efficiency are critical, including build orchestration tools."}
- {"name":"C++","description":"Used for on-device software and performance-sensitive build infrastructure components in the consumer products ecosystem."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Bazel","description":"Primary build system for the entire consumer products organization, supporting hermetic builds, remote execution, and build reproducibility."}
- {"name":"Buildkite","description":"CI orchestration platform for managing complex build pipelines, test execution, and deployment workflows at scale."}
- {"name":"Yocto Project","description":"Embedded Linux build framework used for device software builds, enabling customization and optimization for hardware-specific targets."}
- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration platform hosting CI runners, build infrastructure services, and distributed compute resources."}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Equity and Stock Options","description":"Competitive stock option package as part of OpenAI's equity compensation structure, with vesting schedules aligned to long-term value creation."}
- {"name":"Comprehensive Health Coverage","description":"Medical, dental, and vision insurance with competitive premiums and coverage levels for employees and eligible dependents."}
- {"name":"Retirement Benefits","description":"401(k) plan with employer matching contributions to support long-term financial planning and retirement security."}
- {"name":"Flexible Time Off","description":"Generous paid time off policy including vacation days, sick leave, and personal days to maintain work-life balance."}
- {"name":"Relocation Assistance","description":"Comprehensive relocation support for new employees joining the San Francisco office, including moving allowances and transition assistance."}
- {"name":"Hybrid Work Model","description":"Four days per week in-office with flexible work arrangement supporting productive collaboration while maintaining schedule flexibility."}
- {"name":"Professional Development","description":"Learning opportunities, conference attendance, and training budgets to support career growth and technical skill advancement."}
- {"name":"Mental Health Support","description":"Employee assistance programs, counseling services, and mental health resources supporting employee wellness."}

## Compensation

- **max:** 280000
- **min:** 200000
- **currency:** USD
- **stockOptions:** true

## Interview process

### steps

- {"name":"Resume and Application Review","description":"Initial screening of your professional background focusing on build systems experience, infrastructure engineering breadth, and relevant technology expertise with Bazel and CI systems."}
- {"name":"Technical Phone Screen","description":"Conversation with a hiring engineer covering your hands-on experience with Bazel, CI/CD systems, distributed infrastructure design, and approach to solving build system challenges."}
- {"name":"Deep-Dive Technical Interview","description":"Extended technical discussion with senior team members exploring specific projects, architectural decisions you've made, debugging approaches for complex infrastructure issues, and trade-offs between build speed and reliability."}
- {"name":"System Design Conversation","description":"Collaborative session designing a build or CI system from first principles, discussing scalability, reliability, developer experience, and how you'd approach evolving existing infrastructure."}
- {"name":"Infrastructure and Operations Discussion","description":"Conversation focused on production systems ownership, on-call experience, incident response, observability, and your philosophy on maintaining reliability at scale."}
- {"name":"Cross-Functional Stakeholder Interviews","description":"Meetings with engineering teams who depend on build infrastructure to understand collaboration style, communication skills, and developer experience priorities."}
- {"name":"Leadership and Culture Fit","description":"Final conversation with hiring manager and leadership covering career goals, OpenAI's mission, team dynamics, and alignment with organizational values around safety and impact."}

## Full description
**About the Team**

The Systems Integration team is responsible for building the infrastructure, tooling, and validation systems that ensure our device software our device software is reliable, testable, and ready to ship. We design and maintain build systems, CI pipelines, automated test frameworks, and hardware-in-the-loop labs to enable rapid, safe product launches. Our work spans build systems, developer tools, systems integration, and cross-team collaboration to ensure developers can build reliably and ship with confidence.

**About the Role**

We are looking for an engineer to help evolve OpenAI’s Consumer Products build and continuous integration systems for a fast-growing engineering organization. This role sits at the intersection of developer productivity, build systems, distributed infrastructure, software quality, and on-device software. You will work on the systems that determine how quickly and confident engineers can move: Bazel-bazed builds, Buildkite pipelines, test coverage, remote caching and execution, CI observability, and tooling that helps engineers understand and fix failures quickly.

Our mission is to enable OpenAI to ship software running on consumer devices rapidly with a high bar for correctness, reliability, and safety. The best version of this work is invisible when it succeeds: builds are fast, tests are trusted, CI failures are understandable, and engineers can focus on shipping products instead of fighting infrastructure.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of four days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

**In This Role, You Will**

* Own and evolve Bazel and yocto-based build and test workflows in a polyrepo environment
* Design and maintain Starlark rules, macros, toolchains, and integrations that make builds hermetic, reproducible, and easy for teams to adopt
* Improve CI performance and reliability across Buildkite pipelines, including queue time, build time, cache hit rates, retry behavior, and flake isolation.
* Build systems that reduce unnecessary CI work through affected-target detection, dependency graph analysis, test selection, caching, batching, and smarter scheduling
* Unify local and CI development workflows so engineers can reproduce CI behavior, debug build failures, and iterate quickly without learning every detail of the build stack
* Operate and optimize build infrastructure across Docker/OCI images, Kubernetes-based runners, cloud resources, and remote cache/execution systems
* Instrument build and CI systems with metrics, logs, traces, dashboards, and analytics so we can measure speed, reliability, cost, and developer impact
* Partner directly with users to understand pain points, onboard projects, debug hard build issues, and remove systemic bottlenecks
* Use modern AI tools to pioneer novel CI failure analysis, flaky test debugging, PR triage, automated remediation, and developer-facing information
* Own the reliability of the systems you build, including participating in an on-call rotation for critical developer and factory infrastructure

**Technologies Commonly Used In This Environment Include**

* Bazel and Starlark for build and test workflows
* Buildkite for CI orchestration
* Docker and OCI images for build and runtime packaging
* Kubernetes for CI runners and infrastructure orchestration
* Python, Go, TypeScript, Rust, C++, and other languages in a large monorepo
* Terraform for infrastructure as code
* Remote caching, remote execution, artifact storage, and build telemetry systems

**Minimum Qualifications:**

* 5+ years of engineering experience, including significant experience building infrastructure and tooling for developers
* Hands-on experience with Bazel, Buck, Gradle, or similar build systems, and understand the trade offs of hermetic builds, dependency graphs, caching, sandboxing, and remote execution
* Have built CI systems at scale, especially in environments where build time, queue time, test flakiness, and developer trust materially affect engineering velocity

**You May Be A Strong Fit If You**

* Are comfortable with owning production software and working in environments with strong SLA requirements
* Can debug distributed build and CI failures across source control, dependency management, containers, runners, remote caches, test frameworks, and service infrastructure.
* Care deeply about developer experience and have empty for the small sources of friction that slow teams down or create operational toil
* Are excited to apply AI to developer infrastructure in ways that increase team velocity without weakening quality, reliability, or safety
* Have operated in a polyrepo environment with source code from multiple parties

**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](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf).

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](https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA). No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

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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.