Software Engineer, Privacy Engineering (Lawful Access)

The role

You will build internal tools and data pipelines to power lawful data access request workflows and Legal Operations. You will work across product and data systems to make authorized retrieval and case handling accurate, efficient, and auditable.

What you will do

• Design, build, and operate backend systems and workflow tooling for the full lifecycle of lawful data access requests.
• Build reliable data pipelines and interfaces across products and data stores.
• Implement least-privilege access, approval gates, provenance, audit trails, data minimization, and safe failure modes.
• Partner with Legal and Legal Operations to translate requirements into technical designs and operator experiences.
• Identify responsible automation opportunities.
• Own production systems through testing, observability, incident response, documentation, and continuous reliability improvements.
• Help define the architecture and roadmap for reusable privacy and legal-infrastructure foundations.

Required qualifications

• Strong backend engineering fundamentals.
• Experience building production services or data-intensive systems.
• Ability to reason carefully about correctness, authorization, security, and privacy when working with sensitive data.
• Track record of turning ambiguous requirements into pragmatic plans and communicating technical tradeoffs clearly.
• End-to-end ownership, including operating what you build.
• Comfort learning unfamiliar products and domains.
• Experience collaborating across Engineering, Legal, operations, Privacy, and Security stakeholders.

Nice to have

• Experience building or operating systems for lawful data access requests.
• Curious about using AI tools and agents to improve engineering workflows for privacy-sensitive systems.

Before you apply

• Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law.

About the company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.