OpenAI

Research & Development

Apt Insight

They are moving at breakneck speed, compensation is exceptionally strong, and the mission draws top-tier talent from across tech. Headquartered in San Francisco, the organization operates in the artificial intelligence research and development space. They sit in the large enterprise scale band with thousands of employees and hundreds of technical specialists. Hiring remains highly active with hundreds of open job postings across engineering, research, and go-to-market roles.

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About

OpenAI is a company that believes in building safe and beneficial AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) systems to solve human-level problems.

Founded2015

HeadquartersSan Francisco, US

IndustryResearch & Development

Websiteopenai.com

Employees9.3K

Total Funding$196.0B

Why people join & leave

Why join

Industry-leading compensation and comprehensive benefitsOpportunity to work on cutting-edge frontier AI modelsHigh-density talent environment with elite technical peersMission-driven work toward artificial general intelligence

Why leave

High-stress environment with persistent long working hoursReactive leadership and frequent strategic pivotsInternal friction, politics, and unpredictable on-call demands

Company Pulse

Headcount

-48%past year

Raised

$196.0Btotal

In the News

OpenAI to end model access to Cursor after acquisition by SpaceX - LA Times Nowlatimesnow.com · Aug 30, 2026

OpenAI to cut off AI models for SpaceX-owned Cursor, escalating feud with Musk | Reutersreuters.com · Aug 29, 2026

OpenAI Says AGI Is Coming By Year-End. It Also Just Had The Worst Safety Crisis In Its History.forbes.com · Aug 28, 2026

OpenAI’s rogue AI collective was smart enough to break out of sandboxes but dumb enough to fight a ghostthe-decoder.com · Aug 27, 2026

Inside OpenAI’s Reboottime.com · Aug 26, 2026

Employee Experience

4.2/5

Career Opportunities

4.3

Compensation & Benefits

4.6

Culture & Values

3.9

Diversity & Inclusion

3.9

Senior Management

4.0

Work-Life Balance

3.3

Quick Take

Strengths

Top-tier compensationCompensation and benefits rating stands at an exceptional 92 score.

Strong career opportunitiesCareer opportunities rating sits high at 86 with widespread hiring across technical tracks.

Watch out

Work-life balance strainWork-life balance is rated at 66 amid demanding workloads and fast cycle speeds.

Note

Massive private capitalSecured major private funding rounds including a 122 billion USD raise in March 2026.

Things to consider

Demanding work-life balance — Employees frequently cite intense iteration cycles, high pressure, and non-existent work-life balance reflected in a 66 rating.

Reactive executive direction — Staff reviews highlight frequent shifts in strategy, ongoing internal politics, and high-pressure code reds driven by competition.

Leadership

Dali RajicChief Revenue Officer

What They Build

They build large-scale generative artificial intelligence foundation models and developer platform APIs, including the ChatGPT suite and GPT model series. Technical teams focus on scalable distributed training, high-throughput inference infrastructure, and automated model research. The engineering culture is centered around rapid deployment and large-scale computing systems.

Artificial General Intelligence

Large Language Models

Developer APIs

Machine Learning Infrastructure

AI Safety & Alignment

Domains

MLOps & Distributed Systems

Cloud Infrastructure

AI Research

Data Engineering

Security Engineering

Tech Stack

Kubernetes

Google Cloud Platform

Bazel

CMake

Confluent Kafka

ArgoCD

HiveQL

Lua