Performance Modeling Engineer ~2 at OpenAI in San Francisco, CA

Summary: OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. They are seeking a Performance Modeling Engineer to support the development and application of modeling tools used to evaluate AI system performance and inform architectural decisions. Responsibilities: - Support the development and maintenance of performance modeling tools and frameworks - Assist in building models to evaluate system behavior across compute, memory, networking, and interconnect subsystems - Help analyze distributed system scaling behavior and identify performance bottlenecks - Run simulations and analytical models to support architecture and infrastructure decisions - Partner with senior engineers to evaluate design tradeoffs across hardware and system components - Interpret modeling outputs and help translate findings into clear recommendations - Validate models using benchmarking data and real system performance measurements - Improve modeling workflows, documentation, and usability for broader team adoption - Collaborate cross-functionally with hardware, infrastructure, and architecture teams - Continuously build technical depth across AI infrastructure, system architecture, and performance analysis Required Qualifications: - 1–2 years of experience in software engineering, systems modeling, performance analysis, or related technical work - Strong programming skills and experience building technical tools, scripts, or frameworks - Familiarity with system architecture fundamentals such as compute, memory, and networking - Ability to reason about system performance, bottlenecks, and scaling behavior - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with comfort working in quantitative environments - Ability to learn quickly and work effectively across technical teams Preferred Qualifications: - Exposure to AI/ML workloads, distributed systems, or large-scale infrastructure - Experience with simulation tools, benchmarking, profiling, or performance analysis - Familiarity with data center systems, server architecture, or hardware platforms - Interest in system architecture and hardware/software co-design - Internship or early professional experience in performance engineering, infrastructure, or systems design Required Skills: Software engineering, Systems modeling, Performance analysis, Programming, System architecture fundamentals, Simulation tools, Benchmarking, Profiling, Distributed systems, AI/ML workloads, Data center systems, Server architecture, Hardware platforms, Analytical skills, learn quickly, work effectively across technical teams Benefits: Relocation assistance