About this role
Daily responsibilities center on operating and improving large-scale Ethernet fabrics that support GPU clusters, storage systems, and management infrastructure across Industrial Compute data centers. Team members monitor and resolve network incidents, execute production changes, manage hardware lifecycles, and automate repetitive tasks using Python to reduce operational toil.
OpenAI's Infrastructure Operations team maintains the availability, reliability, and operational excellence of production AI networks. Practitioners in this position partner closely with network architecture, systems engineering, GPU engineering, security, and hardware vendors to raise reliability and deliver highly available GPU infrastructure for AI training and inference workloads. Candidates who thrive here possess a strong background in operating high-availability data centers or HPC networks and can transition smoothly from physical-layer troubleshooting to root-cause analysis.
What you will do
- Manage the operational health, availability, and reliability of production AI network infrastructure across data centers.
- Monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve network incidents to meet service-level objectives and minimize recovery times.
- Operate and maintain large-scale Ethernet fabrics that support GPU compute, storage, and management networks.
- Execute production network changes, maintenance windows, and capacity expansions with minimal customer disruption.
- Handle hardware lifecycle duties such as switch and optics replacements, RMA coordination, and software upgrades.
- Build monitoring, telemetry, dashboards, and alerting to improve network observability and proactive issue detection.
- Automate repetitive operational tasks using Python and infrastructure automation frameworks to improve efficiency.
What you need
- Possess a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Network Engineering, or a related discipline, or have equivalent practical experience.
- Bring five or more years of experience operating large-scale data center, cloud, AI, or HPC network infrastructure.
- Demonstrate hands-on experience with platforms including Cisco NX-OS, Arista EOS, NVIDIA Spectrum, Cumulus Linux, or Juniper JunOS.
- Show strong knowledge of Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking protocols such as BGP, OSPF, ECMP, MLAG, LACP, VRFs, and VLANs.
- Have experience troubleshooting physical infrastructure like fiber optics, transceivers, DAC/AOC cables, and high-speed Ethernet links.
- Demonstrate experience performing software upgrades, hardware maintenance, and production change management.
Nice to have
- Experience operating AI or High-Performance Computing network environments
- Experience with NVIDIA AI networking technologies and GPU infrastructure
- Experience supporting RoCE v2 or RDMA-based Ethernet fabrics
- Experience developing automation using Python, Git, REST APIs, or Terraform
Benefits
- Offers Equity
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the compensation range for this role?
The salary range for the position is $157K to $302K and includes offers of equity.
What travel is required for this position?
This role requires up to 30% travel to data center locations for new turnups and acceptance activities, as needed.
What kind of on-call commitment is expected?
Team members participate in a 24x7 on-call rotation supporting mission-critical AI infrastructure and handling time-sensitive production incidents.