Network Infrastructure Engineer, Global Network Infra (WAN)

About the Team OpenAI's Global Network Infrastructure team is responsible for building and operating the global network backbone that connects our rapidly expanding compute infrastructure. Our work enables reliable, high-performance connectivity across data centers, cloud service providers, and network points of presence (PoPs), supporting the infrastructure behind OpenAI's research and products. As OpenAI continues to scale its compute footprint globally, we are expanding our network infrastructure to meet increasing demands for capacity, reliability, and operational efficiency. Our team works across physical network design, carrier connectivity, network deployment, and operational troubleshooting to deliver resilient infrastructure at exceptional scale. About the Role We are looking for a hands-on Network Infrastructure Engineer to help design, deploy, activate, and operate OpenAI's global wide area network (WAN) infrastructure. In this role, you will take direct ownership of bringing new network connectivity online, working closely with fiber providers, cloud service providers, and internal infrastructure teams to establish reliable connectivity across our global backbone. You will be involved in everything from physical network design and circuit provisioning to troubleshooting complex connectivity issues across Layer 1, Layer 2, and Layer 3. You will play a critical role in expanding our network footprint, bringing new PoPs online, and ensuring that our infrastructure operates reliably as OpenAI continues to grow. We're looking for engineers who enjoy working close to the infrastructure, thrive on solving difficult networking problems, and bring an automation-first mindset to scaling network operations. In This Role, You Will: - Design, deploy, and support WAN infrastructure across data centers, network PoPs, and cloud connectivity environments. - Own the end-to-end activation and turn-up of network circuits, working directly with fiber carriers and cloud service providers to establish and validate connectivity. - Troubleshoot complex network issues across physical, Layer 2, and Layer 3 infrastructure, including optical signal problems, FEC errors, routing issues, and connectivity failures. - Diagnose and isolate network failures across carrier, cloud provider, and internal infrastructure boundaries, driving issues through resolution. - Contribute to physical network infrastructure design, including port mappings, fiber and cable layouts, optical distribution frames (ODFs), and connectivity planning. - Monitor network health, circuit utilization, and performance to proactively identify capacity constraints and reliability risks. - Build automation and tooling to streamline network provisioning, deployment validation, troubleshooting, and operational workflows. - Collaborate with network engineering, data center infrastructure, and external service providers to support the expansion of OpenAI's global backbone. - Participate in an on-call rotation to maintain the reliability and availability of critical network infrastructure. You Might Thrive in This Role If You: - Have hands-on experience deploying, activating, and troubleshooting WAN circuits with telecommunications carriers, fiber providers, or cloud service providers. - Have a strong understanding of networking fundamentals, including optical networking, Ethernet, TCP/IP, BGP, and Layer 2/3 connectivity. - Are comfortable debugging network issues across multiple layers, from physical fiber connectivity and optical errors to routing and traffic forwarding. - Have experience working with data center networking, carrier infrastructure, cloud interconnects, or large-scale WAN environments. - Understand physical network infrastructure concepts such as fiber cabling, port mappings, optical distribution frames, and network equipment connectivity. - Can independently investigate ambiguous connectivity problems, isolate root causes, and work across internal and external teams to restore service. - Have experience with scripting or automation tools and are motivated to reduce manual work through repeatable, scalable processes. - Enjoy working directly with infrastructure and take pride in owning technical problems from initial deployment through operational resolution. - Thrive in a fast-moving environment where infrastructure requirements evolve rapidly and engineering decisions have a direct impact on global scale. Nice to Have - Experience building or operating large-scale backbone networks, hyperscale data center networks, or cloud provider interconnect infrastructure. - Familiarity with optical transport technologies, network telemetry, and advanced troubleshooting of physical network links. - Experience automating network operations using Python, Go, or infrastructure automation frameworks. - Experience deploying new network PoPs or supporting large-scale network expansion projects. - Experience collaborating with carriers, colocation providers, and cloud networking teams on complex connectivity deployments. Why This Role Matters OpenAI's ability to advance AI research and deliver products at global scale depends on reliable, high-performance infrastructure. As a member of the Global Network Infrastructure team, you will help build the connectivity foundation supporting some of the world's most demanding compute environments. Your work will directly contribute to expanding OpenAI's global network footprint, bringing critical infrastructure online, and ensuring the reliability of the systems powering frontier AI. This is an opportunity to work on challenging infrastructure problems, take meaningful ownership of global network deployments, and help shape the next generation of OpenAI's network backbone. 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 https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf. 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. 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