Operating Systems Engineer, Linux Kernel | Consumer Devices

OpenAI Consumer Devices is building the next generation of products that bring powerful AI into peoples everyday lives. Guided by OpenAIs mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity our team combines world-class researchers engineers designers and operators who care deeply about creating useful intuitive and responsible technology. Youll have the opportunity to work alongside exceptional people on ambitious zero-to-one challenges at the intersection of hardware software and AI. This is a chance to help define an entirely new category of productsand shape how people experience AI in the future.

Our team works across custom silicon embedded systems operating systems and cloud services to build reliable consumer devices and the platforms behind them. We connect kernel development with the broader software stack to deliver complete product capabilities.

As an Operating Systems Engineer focused on the Linux kernel you will design develop and maintain the kernel capabilities that underpin OpenAIs consumer devices. Youll bring deep expertise in one or more Linux kernel subsystems and carry solutions through the higher-level software stack.

Your ownership will extend into the userspace services libraries tools and interfaces needed to deliver complete product features. Youll shape the boundaries between kernel and userspace make design decisions across the stack and see your work through development integration and production.

• Build kernel capabilities: Design implement and maintain Linux kernel subsystem changes that support device capabilities and product requirements.

• Own features across the stack: Choose appropriate kernel and userspace boundaries and build the interfaces and supporting components needed to deliver reliable features in shipped products.

• Debug complex system behavior: Use tracing profiling instrumentation and diagnostic tools to resolve correctness concurrency performance power and reliability issues in development and production.

• Measure and validate improvements: Develop tests and representative workloads to demonstrate repeatable performance power and reliability gains and detect regressions across kernel and userspace.

• Partner across disciplines: Work with hardware firmware platform and application engineers to turn system requirements into understandable maintainable solutions.

• Contribute sustainable kernel changes: Prepare reviewable patches incorporate feedback and contribute fixes and improvements upstream where appropriate. Maintain product-specific changes responsibly as the kernel evolves.

• Substantial hands-on experience designing developing and debugging one or more Linux kernel subsystems such as memory management storage networking high-speed peripherals power management scheduling or virtualization.

• Proficiency in C for kernel and low-level systems development.

• Strong understanding of kernel concurrency synchronization memory ownership and resource lifetimes.

• Experience delivering systems capabilities across kernel and userspace including designing interfaces and diagnosing problems that cross that boundary.

• Understanding of Linux kernel development principles and practices: maintainable designs appropriate abstractions reviewable patches compatibility awareness and careful validation to prevent regressions.

• Are proficient in Rust for systems programming with experience developing Linux kernel code in Rust alongside C.

• Participate in the Linux community through patches code review testing bug reports technical discussions or collaboration with subsystem maintainers.

• Take ownership of complete solutions and follow problems across system boundaries.

• Make careful tradeoffs among functionality security performance power and maintainability and explain your decisions with evidence.

• Work constructively through technical review and communicate clearly with teammates across disciplines.

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 OpenAIs 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 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.

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