O

OpenAI

Builds AI models and the ChatGPT assistant

Full-Stack Software Engineer - Child Safety Tools & Systems

Full-TimePosted on 10/17/2026
£161k - £280k/yr
Senior
London, UK
In Person
Software EngineeringFull-Stack Engineering

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 7 years of experience as a software engineer.
  • Have a strong software engineering foundation and enjoy owning systems end-to-end, from infrastructure and data ingestion to frontend tooling.
  • Have experience building and operating large-scale data pipelines or search and retrieval systems.
  • Be proficient in Python and/or TypeScript, and familiar with tools such as Spark, Kafka, Flink, data warehouses, and SQL.
  • Have prior experience working on engineering for high-severity harms.
  • Bring intuition for the pain points and workflows of operations and investigative teams, and curiosity about solving complex investigations.
  • Understand that the role involves exposure to sensitive and egregious content.
Responsibilities
  • Prototype, build, and maintain intelligence systems that detect and triage potential high-severity harm and enable efficient human review.
  • Work with operators and investigators to design and deliver systems that help them work faster, more accurately, and more safely.
  • Develop across the stack, including user interfaces, services, and pipelines, to solve the problems the team faces.
  • Interact with partners across Product Policy, Platform Integrity, Safety Systems, and Research.
  • Contribute to the team’s technical strategy, especially for child-safety-related tools and systems.
  • Report on impact in a data-driven fashion.
Desired Qualifications
  • Be energized by working at the frontier of AI capabilities and integrating new models and APIs into practical systems.
  • Take a product-minded approach, design with user workflows in mind, and iterate quickly based on feedback.
  • Favor pragmatic solutions and be able to ship in low-support environments when needed.
  • Be comfortable navigating ambiguity and open-ended problem spaces with evolving goals.
  • Have prior knowledge of child-safety-specific challenges, such as secure handling of quarantined content and reporting to NCMEC.

About the company

OpenAI researches and builds artificial intelligence models and turns them into products for people, developers, and businesses, with a stated mission of making sure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Its launch of ChatGPT in 2022 brought generative AI into everyday use. People use ChatGPT to ask questions, write, code, and analyze files, developers build OpenAI's models into their own apps through its API, and its Codex agent works through coding tasks on its own. OpenAI earns money from ChatGPT subscriptions, business plans, and API usage. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and others co-founded it in 2015; it is based in San Francisco and overseen by a nonprofit, the OpenAI Foundation.

Company Size

1,001-5,000

Company Stage

Late Stage VC

Total Funding

$226.5B

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2015

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Sales are compounding: OpenAI's yearly revenue pace doubled from $24 billion in March 2026 to nearly $50 billion in September.
  • Equity turns into cash regularly: staff sold $7 billion of shares in August 2026, after $6.6 billion in October 2025.
  • Room to grow: OpenAI plans to nearly double staff to 8,000 by year-end and listed 816 openings in October 2026.

What critics are saying

  • Its chief rival pulled ahead: Claude maker Anthropic's $965 billion valuation in May 2026 topped OpenAI's $852 billion.
  • Profits are years away: OpenAI's own forecast, reported in September 2026, shows $278 billion of cash burn through 2030.
  • Expect leadership churn: 15 senior leaders, including the revenue and applications chiefs, left OpenAI between January and September 2026.

What makes OpenAI unique

  • A nonprofit is in charge: the OpenAI Foundation appoints OpenAI's whole board and held a 26% stake in October 2025.
  • ChatGPT reaches about one in seven people on Earth: 1.2 billion used it each week as of September 2026.
  • Microsoft is a major part-owner: it held about 27% in October 2025 and licenses OpenAI's models through 2032.

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Benefits

  • Health insurance
  • Dental and vision insurance
  • Flexible spending account for healthcare and dependent care
  • Mental healthcare service
  • Fertility treatment coverage
  • 401(k) with generous matching
  • 20-week paid parental leave
  • Life insurance (complimentary)
  • AD&D insurance (complimentary)
  • Short-term/long-term disability insurance (complimentary)
  • Optional buy-up life insurance
  • Flexible work hours and unlimited paid time off (we encourage 4+ weeks per year)

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

6%

1 year growth

1%

2 year growth

2%
Business Insider
Oct 19th, 2026
Judge keeps ex-OpenAI engineer jailed over bugging charge, citing Saudi flight risk despite $1M bond offer

A San Francisco judge ordered former OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan to stay in jail before trial, citing the risk that he might flee to Saudi Arabia. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse ruled on Monday. The Justice Department arrested Alfozan, 35, on October 9. It charged him with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications, after an FBI affidavit said he hid a recording device behind a television in an OpenAI conference room. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years. Tse noted that Alfozan's wife and son had moved to Saudi Arabia, that Alfozan had booked a one-way ticket there, and that the country has no extradition agreement with the US. His lawyers offered an ankle monitor and a bond of about $1 million. The next hearing is set for early November.

Rest of World
Oct 19th, 2026
Can developing nations cope with Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots AI agents?

Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots, new personal agents that book tables, buy groceries, and handle other online chores, may struggle in developing nations, experts told Rest of World. Muse has been downloaded 9 million times in the US and Canada since September 8, and Meta wants a global launch. Language and culture are a hurdle. South African startup ManyHands says getting its assistant to work in all 11 official spoken languages has been hard, and researchers warn agents could impose Western assumptions. Networks are another worry. Cisco says agents generate up to 450% more traffic per task than humans, and poor connectivity could limit what they can do. Cost and access matter too. Only 36% of Africans used the internet in 2025, and Dots costs at least $100 a month.

Business Insider
Oct 15th, 2026
AI lab spy warnings spark memes after FBI arrests OpenAI employee over bugged meeting room

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that AI labs are warning employees about spies, including seduction attempts. The story set off a wave of memes on X. The warnings follow the FBI's arrest of OpenAI employee Abdulrahman Alfozan, who was charged with bugging one of the lab's conference rooms. Alfozan, who was fired, has yet to enter a plea. Reporter Erin Woo quoted the advice as: "If someone is trying to seduce you, first consider — could they be a spy???" Users joked that employees should doubt any unusually attractive admirer. Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, quipped that in the South Bay, a stranger who talks to you is a sign "something is up." Others saw the attention as a recruiting perk.

Citybiz
Oct 15th, 2026
OpenAI Acquihires Founders of AI Marketing Startup Notch

OpenAI has made a strategic move to bolster its commercial AI expertise by acquihiring Vinay Jain and Aman Jain, the... Read More

Yahoo Finance
Oct 15th, 2026
OpenAI's UK staff paid $328M in 2025, with average base salary near $1M

OpenAI's UK staff earned an average basic salary of about £794,000 last year, as competition for top AI researchers pushed pay higher. The ChatGPT creator employed an average of 110 people in Britain in 2025, paying £258m in total across wages and share awards, including £87.3m in base pay. Including share awards, average UK pay packages were worth nearly £2.3m per person. Google's average pay last year, including shares, was around £400,000. Accounts filed with Companies House show OpenAI's UK revenues rose to £292.9m in 2025 from £79.2m a year earlier, with a profit of £31.7m. OpenAI now employs around 200 UK staff and plans to grow to more than 500 in a new King's Cross office. Rival Anthropic plans to grow its UK team to 800.