An OpenAI engineer shared how the company hires for engineering positions: the entire process can take a week, from the first message to signing the offer. The final interview can last from four to six hours.
An OpenAI engineer shared how the company hires for engineering positions: the entire process can take a week, from the first message to signing the offer. The final interview can last from four to six hours.
Jeren Yang, head of the synthetic data generation team at OpenAI, said that the interview process with her was "extremely fast, efficient, and very specific," Business Insider writes .
Before joining OpenAI, Yang worked as a senior engineering manager at Google, where she led the Cloud Spanner project and managed large-scale database systems.
According to her, the recruiter contacted her on Monday, and the very next day the first interview took place with the hiring manager and technical lead.
By Wednesday, Young had completed all stages of the interview process, which lasted a full business day, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Thursday, she received a formal job offer, which she signed on Friday.
Young noted that a key stage in the process was a round of interviews known as a “technical deep dive,” or “research discussion” for research-oriented roles.
Candidates can choose a topic to discuss with the researcher. For engineers, this often means a detailed analysis of the systems they have designed, explaining the problems they were trying to solve and describing the trade-offs behind key decisions.
In addition to technical skills, Young said there is another skill that candidates must master if they want to work at OpenAI: being “incredibly efficient” with their time.
She said that with so many projects currently underway, employees need to focus only on work where their skills offer a clear advantage.
She also added that candidates should actively use artificial intelligence tools and focus on task automation.
According to OpenAI’s candidate guide, the selection process typically consists of a resume screening, introductory calls, professional skills assessments, and final interviews. The final round of interviews typically lasts four to six hours and can be spread over one or two days.
The interviews are designed to focus on candidates' areas of expertise and push them outside their comfort zone, with an emphasis on problem-solving, communication, and collaboration, OpenAI noted.
