ML Silicon Performance Lead

OpenAI · San Francisco

Posted Nov 3, 2026 · full time

Est. total comp~$207K–$341K

Apply on OpenAI's site ↗

From the posting

ABOUT THE TEAM:

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. Building on efforts like Jalapeño, the team is developing future generations of AI-native silicon and tightly integrated systems to power the next generation of frontier models. By co-designing chips, systems, tools, and methodologies, the team helps deliver faster, more efficient, and production-ready hardware for OpenAI’s supercomputing platform.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

We’re looking for an ML Silicon Performance Lead to drive hardware/software co-design for our silicon architecture. You will work across models, kernels, compilers, and silicon to shape how ML workloads map to hardware—and how the hardware should evolve to support them. Your work will connect model and workload requirements with compute, memory, and specialized acceleration capabilities to maximize performance, efficiency, and scalability across current and future generations of AI silicon.

You’ll partner closely with ML research, compiler, and silicon architecture teams to jointly develop software approaches and hardware capabilities. From kernel mapping and quantization to new data structures and specialized IP, you’ll evaluate hardware and software tradeoffs to improve performance, efficiency, and utilization across large-scale AI workloads. …

Excerpt from OpenAI's public job board. Read the full posting.

Job inventory

Required 1 item

Clearance and work authorization: US person (ITAR / export control)

Preferred none listed in the text we have

We have not read this posting carefully yet, so it cannot show as Mission Ready. These items come from a keyword scan.

Get ready for this role

Crew department: Survey

Skills this kind of role usually asks for:

GIS and remote sensing
Geology basics
Image processing
Statistics and ML
Writing up findings clearly

Train for it: the Survey Track: Geology, Geophysics, Mapping and Core. 4 short modules, a quiz after each one and a final test. Pass it and you get the Mars Mining Certificate in Survey and Exploration Fundamentals, with its own public page you can link from your resume.

Join the crew and train for this role About Survey

Quick self-check: are you ready for this one?Free, no signup. Your answers stay in this browser tab.

I can do GIS and remote sensing on the job, or have used it in a class or project I can do Geology basics on the job, or have used it in a class or project I can do Image processing on the job, or have used it in a class or project I can do Statistics and ML on the job, or have used it in a class or project I can do Writing up findings clearly on the job, or have used it in a class or project I have a project or work sample I could show an interviewer My resume is tailored to this kind of role I've practiced answering interview questions for this kind of job

Free. The department comes from the job title and can be off. A Mars Mining certificate shows you studied and passed our test; it isn't a license or academic credit.

About this listing. Pulled automatically from OpenAI's public job board and refreshed daily; closed roles are removed. Mars Mining Co. is not the employer, does not take applications and does not screen candidates. Field and level labels come from the job title and can be wrong.

More at OpenAI

Applied AI Engineer, Digital Natives London, UK
AI Partner Director New York City
Counsel, AI Safety & Cyber Incident Response San Francisco
Enterprise Account Associate - EMEA (German Speaking) Dublin, Ireland
Data Center Controls Engineer (BMS / EPMS) San Francisco

All OpenAI roles on our board →

New to the field? Use the roadmap or read the break-in guides.