Research Scientist, PhD

About the Team

The Research team at OpenAI advances the frontier of artificial intelligence by developing new models, algorithms, and learning paradigms that push toward safe and beneficial AGI. Our researchers work across a wide range of domains including multimodal learning, reasoning, robotics, alignment, and large-scale foundation models, collaborating closely with engineering and product teams to translate research breakthroughs into real-world impact.

About the Role

As a Research Scientist at OpenAI, you will develop novel machine learning methods and contribute to advancing the research agenda of the team you join. You will work on discovering simple, scalable, and generalizable ideas that improve model capabilities and help shape a unified long-term research vision across the organization.

We’re looking for people who are excited to pursue ambitious research problems, operate independently, and collaborate deeply with interdisciplinary teams to bring cutting-edge ideas from concept to impactful systems.

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

In this role, you will:

• Conduct original research to advance the state of the art in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

• Design, implement, and evaluate novel algorithms, models, or training approaches at large scale.

• Collaborate with researchers and engineers to translate research insights into production systems and real-world applications.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Are pursuing or have recently completed a PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Robotics, or a related technical field.

• Have demonstrated research impact through first-author publications, open-source projects, or significant technical contributions.

• Can independently define and execute on a research agenda, identifying impactful problems and driving long-term projects forward.

• Are motivated by OpenAI’s mission and excited to work on research that contributes toward beneficial AGI.

Nice to have:

• Interest in the societal impacts and responsible deployment of AI systems.

• Experience building high-performance or large-scale implementations of deep learning systems.

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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