CPU Storage Tech Lead
San Francisco, CA - USA
Job Summary
About the Team
The Stargate team is responsible for building the physical infrastructure that powers large-scale AI systems. We design and deliver next-generation data centers optimized for dense compute clusters advanced networking and rapidly evolving hardware platforms.
This work sits at the intersection of hardware engineering systems architecture and infrastructure executiontranslating cutting-edge compute roadmaps into scalable production-ready environments.
Our teams partner across silicon vendors server and storage OEMs networking teams and data center engineering organizations to bring new capacity online quickly reliably and at global scale.
About the Role
We are seeking a CPU & Storage Technical Lead to define and drive the server compute and storage architecture strategy for Stargate infrastructure.
In this role you will own technical direction across CPU platforms memory configurations local and disaggregated storage systems and their integration into large-scale AI clusters. You will evaluate vendor roadmaps lead platform tradeoff decisions and ensure compute and storage systems are optimized for training inference and supporting services.
You will work cross-functionally with hardware engineering performance modeling networking supply chain and deployment teams as well as external partners such as AMD Intel OEMs ODMs and storage vendors.
This is a highly strategic role for someone who can operate deeply at the component level while also driving long-range infrastructure decisions.
Key Responsibilities
Own CPU and storage technical strategy for Stargate compute infrastructure across current and future generations.
Evaluate CPU platforms across performance efficiency memory bandwidth PCIe topology cost and roadmap alignment.
Define storage architectures for AI environments including boot media local NVMe shared storage caching tiers metadata services and high-performance data pipelines.
Drive server platform decisions involving CPU memory NIC GPU and storage subsystem integration.
Partner with performance modeling teams to quantify tradeoffs across compute memory I/O and storage bottlenecks.
Work with silicon and hardware vendors on roadmap influence feature requests qualification plans and technical escalations.
Lead bring-up and validation efforts for new CPU and storage platforms in lab and production environments.
Partner with networking and cluster architecture teams to optimize end-to-end node design and data movement.
Support supply chain and sourcing teams with technical vendor assessments and second-source strategies.
Drive reliability serviceability and fleet lifecycle planning for compute and storage platforms.
Translate future AI workload requirements into infrastructure platform specifications.
Provide technical leadership across cross-functional stakeholders and executive reviews.
Qualifications
Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Computer Science or related technical field; advanced degree preferred.
10 years of experience in server hardware systems architecture data center infrastructure or hyperscale compute platforms.
Deep expertise in modern CPU architectures (x86 ARM accelerator host systems) and server platform design.
Strong understanding of memory systems PCIe/CXL fabrics NUMA behavior and platform-level performance constraints.
Experience with storage systems including NVMe SSD qualification RAID distributed storage object/file systems or high-performance data pipelines.
Experience evaluating hardware tradeoffs across performance cost power thermals and supply availability.
Familiarity with GPU clusters and AI training/inference infrastructure strongly preferred.
Experience working directly with OEMs ODMs silicon vendors or storage vendors.
Strong systems thinking with ability to connect component decisions to fleet-level outcomes.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence engineering and executive stakeholders.
Proven ability to operate in fast-moving ambiguous environments with high ownership.
Preferred Skills
Experience designing infrastructure for large-scale AI or HPC environments.
Familiarity with CPU vendor roadmaps across AMD Intel and ARM ecosystems.
Experience with distributed storage architectures supporting GPU clusters.
Knowledge of fleet operations hardware lifecycle management and production deployments at scale.
Prior experience in hyperscale cloud AI infrastructure or advanced compute environments.
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.
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About Company
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