Six Figure Work

Software Engineer, Backend — Dots

OpenAI

Company websiteopenai.com (OpenAI, opens in new tab)

Base salary $347K  to $385K

Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in New York City, NY

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  • LocationNew York City, NY
  • WorkplaceHybrid
  • Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
  • Last checked (1 h ago) · observed since

About this job

About the Role

Dots is looking for a Backend Engineer to build the systems that power our product. You’ll work closely with product, design, and engineering to turn ideas into reliable services and deliver features from design through production.

In this role, you will:

  • Design, build, and maintain backend services and APIs.

  • Develop data models and improve database performance.

  • Build integrations with third-party services.

  • Improve system reliability, security, and observability.

  • Write tested, maintainable code and participate in code reviews.

  • Investigate production issues and address their root causes.

  • Help shape technical decisions as the product grows.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

  • Experience building and operating backend applications in production.

  • Strong proficiency in a backend programming language.

  • Solid understanding of API design, relational databases, and data modeling.

  • Experience with cloud infrastructure, automated testing, and deployment workflows.

  • Ability to balance speed with quality and make practical technical decisions.

  • Clear communication and a collaborative approach to solving problems.

Nice to have:

  • Experience with distributed systems, background jobs, and event-driven architectures.

  • Familiarity with caching, queues, and performance optimization.

  • Experience working on a small team or an early-stage product.

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, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy

At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

Source: OpenAI on Ashby · View original posting (opens in new tab)

Pay in context

This role's base floor ($347,000) is above 98% of the 457 Data & ML roles in New York listed on this site; 2 others list the same floor. Their median floor is $176,000; the middle half runs from $150,000 to $200,000.

Only jobs on this site count, and each one publishes a base salary of $100,000 or more, so this compares six-figure jobs with each other, not with the whole market. Computed Nov 6, 2026.

This range next to 6 other live OpenAI roles with the nearest advertised base floor
Chart as a table
This range next to 6 other live OpenAI roles with the nearest advertised base floor
RolePublished base
Software Engineer, Backend — Dots (this listing)$347K - $385K
Founding Full Stack Software Engineer, Legal$347K - $445K
Full Stack Software Engineer, Consumer Verticals$347K - $385K
Founding Software Engineer, Physical Engineering$347K - $445K
Performance Modeling Engineer$347K - $445K
Software Engineer, ChatGPT Shopping$347K - $445K
Tax Director, Tax Counsel$347K - $385K

Same $100K to $400K scale as every card. All OpenAI roles · How to read the bar

Observed changes

  1. First observed on the employer's board
  2. Began meeting the published-salary criteria
Observed since
Employer-stated posting date
2026-10-19
Where this pay comes from

Location as the employer wrote it: New York City

USD 347,000 – 385,000 · 1 YEAR · Salary

Method
Structured pay field published by the employer
Checked
Rule set
us-base-v2

The employer's job board publishes this pay as a dedicated data field. We read the field directly; no interpretation was needed.

What we verified

  • The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
  • The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
  • The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.

We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.