Performance Modeling Engineer ~2

About the Team

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops system and infrastructure solutions designed for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. We work closely with architecture, infrastructure, and vendor teams to evaluate system performance and guide critical design decisions.

Our team focuses on building and applying performance modeling frameworks to understand system behavior, quantify tradeoffs, and support next-generation infrastructure design.

About the Role

We are seeking an Performance Modeling Engineer to support the development and application of modeling tools used to evaluate AI system performance and inform architectural decisions.

In this role, you will partner closely with Senior Performance Modeling Engineers and the Performance Modeling Lead to analyze system behavior, run simulations and analytical models, and help evaluate tradeoffs across compute, memory, networking, and storage. You will contribute to building modeling frameworks while developing a strong foundation in system architecture and AI infrastructure.

This role is ideal for early-career engineers with 1–2 years of experience in software engineering, systems analysis, or performance modeling who are excited to grow in large-scale infrastructure and hardware/software 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.

Key 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

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 Skills

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

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,…