Full-Stack Software Engineer, Social Products

The Incubation team explores and develops new product ideas at their earliest stages — identifying opportunities, rapidly testing concepts, and building the foundations for future OpenAI products. Operating as a 0→1 innovation group, the team works across problem spaces to discover where advances in AI can unlock entirely new user experiences.

We operate with a startup-like mindset inside OpenAI: small teams, fast iteration cycles, and a willingness to explore bold ideas, learn quickly, and pivot based on real-world signals. Our goal is to turn promising concepts into validated products that can scale to global impact.

About the Role

As a Full-Stack Software Engineer on the Incubation team, you’ll help imagine, prototype, and build entirely new product experiences within the OpenAI ecosystem. This team moves quickly from idea to experiment to iteration, exploring multiple directions in parallel and investing deeply in the most promising opportunities.

You’ll work across the stack—building frontend and backend systems, developing rapid prototypes, and collaborating closely with designers, researchers, and product partners—to bring early-stage ideas to life. This includes developing production systems on top of the high-scale internal platforms that power ChatGPT and the OpenAI API, as well as designing new architectures when existing systems aren’t sufficient.

In this role, you will:

• Prototype and iterate quickly on new product ideas, exploring how AI can unlock novel user experiences and workflows.

• Turn early concepts into functional demos and ship code early and often, using real-world feedback to guide iteration.

• Validate ideas through experimentation and help scale the strongest concepts from prototype to production.

• Work across the full stack to build products from initial exploration through launch readiness.

• Collaborate closely with research, product, design, data science, and engineering partners to drive meaningful impact.

• Learn from and contribute alongside deeply experienced engineers while fostering a high-trust, inclusive, and candid team culture.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.

• Have built and shipped full-stack apps end-to-end — from prototype to traction — in fast-moving, startup-like environments.

• Are energized by ambiguity — you can take a one-sentence idea and turn it into a working product.

• Jump at opportunities to learn new systems or languages and share your insights clearly with others.

• Enjoy exploring new problem spaces and shaping products before requirements are fully defined.

• Thrive in high-ambiguity environments and can independently translate broad ideas into shipped products.

• Welcome direct, constructive feedback and offer the same to others with clarity and respect.

• Are fluent across multiple programming languages and frameworks — choosing the right tools to move quickly and effectively.