Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This Software Engineer, Gov role stands out in SaaS because it sits at the intersection of product deployment and regulated customer environments. Rather than building a single-tenant internal system, the work centers on adapting a large-scale AI platform for public sector use, where infrastructure choices, security constraints, and operational reliability shape what can be shipped. The remit spans cloud and on premises delivery, reflecting a SaaS reality where enterprise adoption often depends on flexible deployment models.
For a long-term SaaS career, the position offers durable exposure to how modern platforms are operationalized beyond core app development. Cross-functional work with security and compliance mirrors the way many SaaS companies mature as they move into higher-trust segments, and the emphasis on optimization ties directly to cost, latency, and reliability tradeoffs that recur across subscription products. Direct customer partnership also builds product judgment that transfers to platform engineering, solutions engineering, and technical product paths.
This role fits engineers who like ambiguous problem spaces and prefer owning outcomes across the stack rather than staying within a narrow service boundary. It also suits professionals interested in applied AI systems who value practical deployment feedback loops and can collaborate closely with non-engineering stakeholders in constraint-heavy settings.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
About the Team
Join the engineering teams that bring OpenAI’s ideas safely to the world!
The Applied Engineering team works across research, engineering, product, and design to bring OpenAI’s technology to consumers and businesses. We seek to learn from deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this powerful tool is used responsibly and safely. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth.
About the Role
We’re seeking Software Engineers who can solve complex, high-impact problems across our stack. In this role, you’ll join a nimble team driving the deployment of OpenAI’s technology into new environments and infrastructure that power critical missions in the public sector.
You’ll work cross-functionally with product, security, and compliance teams to build the functionality needed to deliver a scalable, reliable platform. You’ll also partner directly with customers to design and build new products and features that create real-world impact.
From launching net-new capabilities to optimizing how we serve inference in unique, high-stakes environments, this role offers both breadth and technical depth—giving you the opportunity to shape the future of OpenAI’s technology where it matters most.
This role is based in Washington D.C., San Francisco, CA or Seattle, WA. Occasional travel to customer sites is required for this role.
In this role, you will:
Own the development of new customer-facing ChatGPT and OpenAI API features end-to-end, both on-premises and in the cloud, for our public sector customers.
Partner and directly embed with teams across the business, including engineering, security, and compliance, to enable our products to work within the unique constraints of new environments.
Talk to users to understand their problems and design solutions to address them
Work with the research team to get relevant feedback and iterate on their latest models, developing solutions specific for public sector customers at both the model & data layers.
Collaborate with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, product managers, designers, and operations folks to create cutting-edge products
Optimize applications for speed and scale
You might thrive in this role if you:
US Citizen
5+ years of relevant engineering experience at tech and product-driven companies
Proficiency with JavaScript, React, and other web technologies
Proficiency with some backend language (we use Python)
Some experience with underlying infrastructure primitives like Kubernetes and Terraform
Interest in AI/ML (direct experience not required)
Ability to move fast in an environment where things are sometimes loosely defined and may have competing priorities or deadlines
An interest in enabling public sector use cases with unique requirements
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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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.
