SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
OpenAI's Connector Ecosystem team is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to set technical direction and build the systems behind the plugin platform that extends ChatGPT and Codex. The team works on plugins, skills, connectors, interactive apps, and open standards like the Model Context Protocol (MCP), making it easy for anyone to turn workflows into shareable plugins.
In this role, you will set technical direction and lead complex initiatives across the plugin ecosystem, aligning architecture and execution across teams. You'll drive product and design decisions with cross-functional partners (Product, Design, Research, Engineering), helping define priorities and shape intuitive experiences for users and developers. Key responsibilities include designing and shipping APIs, SDKs, and services that developers use to extend ChatGPT and Codex; building intuitive experiences for discovering, installing, and using plugins; making plugin creation, testing, publishing, and sharing easier; improving how models use plugins through collaboration with Research; ensuring plugin reliability and interaction quality with clear error handling; building permissions, approvals, and admin controls for organizational adoption; and raising the engineering bar through mentorship and technical guidance.
You'll remain hands-on while driving strategic decisions, translating user and developer needs into clear priorities, and guiding technical decisions that balance rapid iteration with long-term reliability. You'll work across web interfaces and backend systems, collaborating with developers and partners to turn recurring problems into platform improvements. The role is based in San Francisco with a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of building and shipping products or platforms that people and developers rely on
- Experience leading complex technical initiatives across teams and driving product and design decisions in partnership with product managers and designers
- Strong product quality focus and ability to make complex capabilities feel intuitive
- Strong opinions about APIs and abstractions with ability to explain tradeoffs; experience with identity, permissions, or integration-heavy systems especially valuable
- Comfort engaging with users and developers to understand needs and turn recurring problems into improvements
- Ability to move between product questions and technical details, collaborate across teams, and take ambiguous problems to production
- Comfort working across web interfaces and backend systems; experience building applied AI systems, diagnosing model–tool interactions, and measuring reliability/quality especially valuable
- Track record building products people rely on or software other developers use (APIs, SDKs, open-source projects, developer platforms, or internal tools with real users)
