CPU Storage Tech Lead · OpenAI

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:21:17 GMT
Engineering

OpenAI · San Francisco; Seattle · $342K – $555K · hybrid

Compensation

The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non-exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.

Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts

Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)

401(k) retirement plan with employer match

Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)

Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees

13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)

Mental health and wellness support

Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage

Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth

Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible

Relocation support for eligible employees

Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

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.

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.

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

Bachelor’s 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.

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](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf).

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