Software Systems Engineer Jobs in San Francisco, CA
Software Systems Engineer jobs in San Francisco are concentrated in SoMa, Mission Bay, and the Financial District, driven by demand across cloud infrastructure, embedded systems, and defense technology. Employers actively hiring include OpenAI, GAMMA, and CRUSOE. Scan the live roles below and apply to whichever ones fit.
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Showing 5 of 285+ Software Systems Engineer jobs
Intelligence & Investigations - San Francisco and London, UK
About the Team
The Intelligence & Investigations Engineering team builds systems that detect, analyze, and disrupt abuse across OpenAI’s products. We partner closely with the Child Safety team and cross-functional groups to protect users while advancing OpenAI’s goal of developing AI that benefits everyone.
About the Role
As a Fullstack Engineer focused on child safety, you’ll build data-intensive, AI-powered applications and infrastructure that enable operators and investigators to work effectively and responsibly. You’ll adapt quickly in ambiguous, fast-moving environments to deliver well-crafted, reliable tooling for high-severity safety work.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
Candidates should understand this role involves exposure to sensitive and egregious content.
In this role, you will:
4+ years of experience as a software engineer
Prototype, build, and maintain intelligence systems that detect, triage, and enable efficient human review of possible high severity harm
Work hand in hand with operators and investigators, designing and delivering systems that enable them to do their work faster, more accurately, and more safely.
Develop across the stack: UIs, services, pipelines, and anything else required to solve the problems we face.
Interact with partners across Product Policy Integrity, Safety Systems, and Research
Contribute to the team’s technical strategy, especially for child safety related tools and systems
Report on impact in a data-driven fashion
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have a strong software engineering foundation and enjoy owning systems end-to-end—from infrastructure and data ingestion to frontend tooling
Are energized by working at the frontier of AI capabilities, integrating new models and APIs into practical systems
Have experience building and operating large-scale data pipelines or search/retrieval systems
Are proficient in Python and/or TypeScript, data warehouses, and SQL
Take a product-minded approach, design with user workflows in mind, and iterate quickly based on feedback
Favor pragmatic solutions and can ship in hacky, low-support environments when needed
Are comfortable navigating ambiguity and open-ended problem spaces with evolving goals
Have prior experience working on engineering for high-severity harms
Bring intuition for the pain points and workflows of operations and investigative teams, and curiosity about solving complex investigations
Bonus: prior knowledge of child-safety-specific challenges such as secure handling of quarantined content and reporting to NCMEC
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 the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employeration, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable lawation technology systems and related data security obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.
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.
Compensation
$266K – $385K + Offers Equity
The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factorsance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following 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 (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
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, may also be provided.
More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.
This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.
Intelligence & Investigations - San Francisco and London, UK
About the Team
The Intelligence & Investigations Engineering team builds systems that detect, analyze, and disrupt abuse across OpenAI’s products. We partner closely with the Child Safety team and cross-functional groups to protect users while advancing OpenAI’s goal of developing AI that benefits everyone.
About the Role
As a Fullstack Engineer focused on child safety, you’ll build data-intensive, AI-powered applications and infrastructure that enable operators and investigators to work effectively and responsibly. You’ll adapt quickly in ambiguous, fast-moving environments to deliver well-crafted, reliable tooling for high-severity safety work.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
Candidates should understand this role involves exposure to sensitive and egregious content.
In this role, you will:
4+ years of experience as a software engineer
Prototype, build, and maintain intelligence systems that detect, triage, and enable efficient human review of possible high severity harm
Work hand in hand with operators and investigators, designing and delivering systems that enable them to do their work faster, more accurately, and more safely.
Develop across the stack: UIs, services, pipelines, and anything else required to solve the problems we face.
Interact with partners across Product Policy Integrity, Safety Systems, and Research
Contribute to the team’s technical strategy, especially for child safety related tools and systems
Report on impact in a data-driven fashion
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have a strong software engineering foundation and enjoy owning systems end-to-end—from infrastructure and data ingestion to frontend tooling
Are energized by working at the frontier of AI capabilities, integrating new models and APIs into practical systems
Have experience building and operating large-scale data pipelines or search/retrieval systems
Are proficient in Python and/or TypeScript, data warehouses, and SQL
Take a product-minded approach, design with user workflows in mind, and iterate quickly based on feedback
Favor pragmatic solutions and can ship in hacky, low-support environments when needed
Are comfortable navigating ambiguity and open-ended problem spaces with evolving goals
Have prior experience working on engineering for high-severity harms
Bring intuition for the pain points and workflows of operations and investigative teams, and curiosity about solving complex investigations
Bonus: prior knowledge of child-safety-specific challenges such as secure handling of quarantined content and reporting to NCMEC
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 the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employeration, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable lawation technology systems and related data security obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.
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.
Compensation
$266K – $385K + Offers Equity
The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factorsance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following 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 (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
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, may also be provided.
More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.
This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.
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Find JobsSoftware Systems Engineer Job Market in San Francisco
Who's Hiring
- OpenAI80
- GAMMA17
- CRUSOE17
- Eventual11
- Anthropic11
Top Industries Hiring
- Science & Research
- Technology & Software
Software Systems Engineer Jobs in San Francisco: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a software systems engineer job in San Francisco?
Focus your search on San Francisco's strongest hiring sectors: cloud platforms, cybersecurity, biotech infrastructure, and hardware-software integration. SoMa and Mission Bay concentrate the most openings, with Dogpatch and the Civic Center corridor also active. Candidates who can demonstrate systems-level thinking alongside software skills, particularly in distributed systems or real-time processing, stand out in this market. Networking through local engineering meetups and open-source contributions visible on public repositories also carries weight with San Francisco hiring teams.
Which companies hire software systems engineers in San Francisco?
Companies currently hiring software systems engineers in San Francisco include OpenAI, GAMMA, and CRUSOE, per current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. San Francisco's employer mix skews toward high-growth tech firms, enterprise software companies, and federally contracted defense and infrastructure organizations with local offices.
Are there remote software systems engineer jobs in San Francisco?
Yes, though availability depends heavily on the role: software systems engineers working on cloud architecture, platform reliability, or developer tooling tend to find remote options more readily than those working on embedded hardware or physical lab systems. About 67% of software systems engineer openings tied to San Francisco are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, with hybrid arrangements most common at enterprise firms headquartered in SoMa and the Financial District.
How can I get a software systems engineer job in San Francisco with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in San Francisco is targeting associate systems engineer or platform reliability roles at mid-stage startups in SoMa and Mission Bay, which tend to hire more broadly than large enterprise employers. Building a portfolio around open-source infrastructure projects or contributing to developer tooling used by San Francisco companies gets attention. Local coding bootcamps with employer partnerships and university co-op programs tied to Bay Area technology firms also create direct entry points that bypass traditional experience requirements.
Which industries hire the most software systems engineers in San Francisco?
The sectors hiring the most software systems engineers in San Francisco are Science & Research and Technology & Software, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. San Francisco's concentration of cloud-native companies, biotech campuses in Mission Bay, and defense contractors with Bay Area offices drives consistent demand across each of these sectors.
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