Software Engineer, Youth Well-Being

The Youth Well-Being product team at OpenAI, part of the Integrity pillar, focuses on deploying state-of-the-art AI technologies safely and age-appropriately for youth and families. This Senior Software Engineer role involves architecting and building foundational systems for family- and youth-facing experiences across OpenAI products, ensuring they are safe, compliant, and empowering. The position requires operating across a broad technical surface, including identity primitives, age assurance pipelines, and guardian tools, collaborating with cross-functional teams to set standards for family interaction with generative AI.

Must Have

• Architect and implement teen and guardian experiences across OpenAI products, including ChatGPT.
• Build global age assurance systems that are privacy-preserving and tailored to regional compliance needs.
• Design and evolve our identity infrastructure to support scalable, secure, and resilient user journeys.
• Help define safety and well-being metrics, and continuously improve user trust through technical interventions.

Good to Have

• Experience building products or infrastructure for users under 18, or strong interest in digital safety, youth well-being, or educational technology.
• Hands-on experience with identity platforms, auth/authz systems, or user verification at scale.
• Experience with systems involving regulatory complexity (e.g., COPPA, GDPR-K, UK OSA, KOSA) or navigating legal constraints in product development.
• Comfortable owning complex, ambiguous problems end-to-end, learning quickly, and adapting to fast-changing priorities.
• Ability to thrive in a cross-functional team, with strong collaboration across policy, research, legal, and product functions.
• Care deeply about building systems that are not just performant, but also inclusive, thoughtful, and ethical.

Perks & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time
• Mental health and wellness support
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
• Relocation support for eligible employees
• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends

About the Team

The Youth Well-Being product team is part of the Integrity pillar at OpenAI, responsible for ensuring that our state-of-the-art AI technologies are deployed in safe, age-appropriate, and beneficial ways—especially for youth and families.

We work across OpenAI’s entire product surface area, from ChatGPT to future-facing tools, to architect safety and trust into the foundation of our systems. Our mission: empower families while meeting the highest standards of regulatory compliance and ethical responsibility.

This work is core to OpenAI’s mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity. Safety, especially for the most vulnerable users, is more important to us than unfettered growth.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help architect and build the foundational systems that power family- and youth-facing experiences at scale. You’ll help define how teens and guardians engage with OpenAI products—ensuring those experiences are safe, compliant, and empowering.

You’ll operate across a broad technical surface: building identity primitives, age assurance pipelines, and guardian tools that support both proactive and reactive interventions. You’ll collaborate closely with a cross-functional team of engineers, data scientists, designers, user researchers, and policy experts.

This is a high-impact, 0→1 opportunity to set the standard for how families interact with generative AI.

In this role, you will:

• Architect and implement teen and guardian experiences across OpenAI products, including ChatGPT.
• Build global age assurance systems that are privacy-preserving and tailored to regional compliance needs.
• Design and evolve our identity infrastructure to support scalable, secure, and resilient user journeys at consumer internet scale.
• Help define safety and well-being metrics, and continuously improve user trust through technical interventions.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have built products or infrastructure for users under 18, or have a strong interest in digital safety, youth well-being, or educational technology.
• Have hands-on experience with identity platforms, auth/authz systems, or user verification at scale.
• Have worked on systems with regulatory complexity (e.g., COPPA, GDPR-K, UK OSA, KOSA) or experience navigating legal constraints in product development.
• Are comfortable owning complex, ambiguous problems end-to-end, learning quickly, and adapting to fast-changing priorities.
• Can thrive in a cross-functional team, with strong collaboration across policy, research, legal, and product functions.
• Care deeply about building systems that are not just performant, but also inclusive, thoughtful, and ethical.