OpenAI has opened applications for its 2026 Residency program, a six-month paid internship with research teams in San Francisco. Participants will receive $18,300 per month, work on cutting-edge AI projects, and be eligible for full-time employment upon completion.
OpenAI has opened applications for its 2026 Residency program, a six-month paid internship with research teams in San Francisco. Participants will receive $18,300 per month, work on cutting-edge AI projects, and be eligible for full-time employment upon completion.
Residency is OpenAI’s «talent accelerator.» The goal is to find people with high learning speed, technical courage, and non-trivial thinking — even without formal education or a «classic» career path.
Residents join the Research team as full-time employees, working alongside experienced engineers and scientists, learning to set up experiments, and making real contributions to OpenAI’s research areas.
The team emphasizes: a diploma does not matter. What is important to them is:
technical strength and dynamics of development — «trajectory over archetype»;
ability to learn quickly and work in uncertainty;
the ability to independently build complex technical projects.
Suitable:
engineers, hackers, founders who create working prototypes in non-trivial areas;
researchers in mathematics, physics, neuroscience, and quantitative disciplines;
people who have taught themselves machine learning;
winners of Olympiads, hackathons, authors of strong open-source projects.
The resident must:
be confident in programming;
have a strong foundation in linear algebra, statistics, probability theory, and analysis;
be able to independently build complex technical systems.
Additional advantages:
technical awards and achievements;
publications or impactful projects;
signs of rapid learning and experimental thinking.
Duration: 6 months
Format: hybrid, office in San Francisco
Relocation support available
Payment: $18,300 per month
Possibility to get a full-time offer
OpenAI will begin reviewing applications and technical interviews in January 2026. The process will involve several technical steps over several weeks. The program start date is flexible. You can fill out the application here.
