Technical Sourcer, Research SWE

About the Team

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) that benefits all of humanity. Achieving this requires bringing the world’s most exceptional talent under one roof to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Our Research Recruiting team plays a critical role in this effort. We are an embedded part of the research organization—working side by side with our research staff to deeply understand evolving priorities, build trust, and strategically shape the future of OpenAI’s talent.

About the Role

You’ll focus on identifying and engaging world‑class software and machine learning engineers who are advancing the frontier of machine learning and artificial intelligence. In this role, you will drive top‑of‑funnel sourcing efforts, build thoughtful outreach strategies, and cultivate long‑term relationships with highly specialized technical talent to support our Research teams’ hiring ambitions.

You’ll work across a range of deeply technical roles, mapping emerging fields, identifying leading contributors, and proactively engaging experts in their respective domains. You’ll partner closely with recruiters, hiring managers, and research leaders to surface exceptional candidates, generate strong pipelines for niche searches, and continuously refine sourcing strategies to help our research teams grow and scale.

Your Responsibilities:

• Build highly targeted searches that deliver candidate profiles with precision.

• Craft thoughtful approaches to candidate outreach that will engage even the most passive talent and cultivate relationships with high priority targets over the long-term.

• Develop and utilize creative strategies to discover non-traditional, highly specialized, and/or up and coming talent.

• Partner closely with hiring managers across OpenAI to develop customized sourcing strategies and advise them on the market.

• Take a highly organized and data driven approach to candidate tracking and funnel metrics.

• Represent OpenAI and engage with community members at conferences and events.

We’re Seeking:

• Significant experience sourcing specialized engineering/technical talent across a range of highly technical domains.

• Deep interest in AI and the engineering challenges behind frontier research, with a desire to deepen your understanding of complex technical domains and communities.

• Demonstrable success in sourcing and hiring top technical talent at a premier tech company, high-growth startup, VC, and/or executive search firm.

• Ability to drive multiple complex searches in parallel while maintaining a high quality bar and exceptional stakeholder + candidate experience.

• A passion for the research and mapping components of sourcing; it’s a long game.

Workplace & Location

This role can be based in our San Francisco, New York, or Seattle offices or remotely in the US. When applying, let us know which location(s) work for you. If you’re joining us in person, we offer relocation support and follow a hybrid schedule: three days a week in the office, with the option to work from home on Thursdays and Fridays.

Our offices are set up for focus and connection—with height-adjustable desks, conference rooms, phone booths, well-stocked kitchens full of snacks and drinks, three in-house prepared meals daily, outdoor space for working and socializing, wellness rooms, private bike storage, and more.

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.

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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.