Software Engineer, Plugin Developer Platform

About the Team

The Plugin Developer Platform team builds the APIs, SDKs, and tools that let people extend ChatGPT and Codex. We work on plugins, connectors, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), and interactive apps.

We want anyone to be able to turn a useful workflow into a plugin, share it, and have other people use it. A plugin can package instructions and skills with connections to the tools and data it needs. Our work covers plugin creation and publishing, the systems that run plugins across our products, and open standards that developers can build on.

About the Role

We’re looking for platform-minded engineers who know what it takes to build a platform developers want to use. You’ll work across developer-facing interfaces, APIs, and backend systems. You’ll own features from the first developer conversation through implementation and release.

You’ll talk directly with developers, partners, and the open-source community. Their experience will inform the APIs and abstractions you design, the problems you prioritize, and the tradeoffs you make.

This role is based in San Francisco. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

What You’ll Do

• Design and ship APIs, SDKs, and services that developers use to extend ChatGPT and Codex.
• Make plugins easier to create, test, publish, update, and share.
• Improve compatibility and consistency across ChatGPT and Codex, including interactive app experiences.
• Contribute to MCP and other open standards, bringing practical developer needs into their design.
• Work with developers and partners to understand recurring problems and improve the platform, tooling, and documentation.
• Work with Product, Research, Security, and Trust & Safety on permissions, compatibility, and safe, reliable execution.
  

You Might Thrive Here If You

• Have built software that other developers use. Your experience might include an open-source project, an API or SDK, a developer platform, internal tools with real users, or a devtools company.
• Have opinions about APIs and abstractions, and can explain the tradeoffs behind your decisions.
• Enjoy talking with developers and learning what they are trying to build.
• Can move between product questions and technical details, identify what matters, and take work from an unclear problem through to production.
• Are comfortable working across web interfaces and backend systems, and learning unfamiliar parts of the stack.
• Want to help define how developers build software for AI agents, including through open standards such as MCP.

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.

Compensation: $185K - $490K