OpenAI
Research
RE/RS,DataUnderstanding-Foundations
Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Mid+ candidates.
“RE/RS, Data Understanding - Foundations at OpenAI. Skills: Data Understanding, ML, Data Curation. creating high quality datasets. quantized representation”
What You'll Achieve.
improve model; affect model learning; affect downstream behavior; build evidence for which approaches work; translate successful research into scalable data processing pipelines
Industry & Context.
data quality and curation as core research problems
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
track record of new or improved ML ideas, publications, projects, applied research, Own and drive a research agenda, choosing the right problems, carrying long-running work through to impact, excited by OpenAI’s empirical, collaborative approach to research
Nice to Have
Thoughtfulness about AI’s impact, privacy, provenance, data quality, Experience building high-performance deep learning, large-scale data processing systems
What You'll Do.
creating high quality datasets
quantized representation
building VQ representations
advance how OpenAI builds pretraining data
develop new methods to select data
design rigorous experiments
understand how data choices affect model learning
work closely with frontier models
build evidence for approaches
translate successful research into pipelines
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
collaborative approach to research
Process & Methodology
Own and drive a research agenda, carrying long-running work through to impact
Full Job Description
About The Team The Data Understanding team is responsible for creating the high quality datasets and their quantized representation for OpenAI. This includes synthesizing data, building VQ representations, and processing, filtering, deduplication, quality control, and tokenization so it can be used effectively in big model training runs. About The Role We're looking to advance how OpenAI builds and understands pretraining data at scale. You'll treat data quality and curation as core research problems: developing new methods to select, combine, and transform data; creating datasets that improve model capabilities; and designing rigorous experiments to understand how data choices and interventions affect model learning and downstream behavior. You'll work closely with frontier models and web-scale data to build evidence for which approaches work and why, then translate successful research into scalable data processing pipelines We Expect You To - Have a strong track record of new or improved ML ideas, through publications, projects, or applied research. - Own and drive a research agenda, from choosing the right problems to carrying long-running work through to impact. - Be excited by OpenAI’s empirical, collaborative approach to research. Nice To Have - Thoughtfulness about AI’s impact, including privacy, provenance, and data quality. - Experience building high-performance deep learning or large-scale data processing systems. About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. We are an equal opportuni
Applying for this RE/RS, Data Understanding - Foundations role?
Most applicants get filtered before a human reads their resume. See if yours makes the cut.
How to Apply on Ashby
- Ashby is a fast modern ATS — most applications take under 3 minutes.
- The resume parser is strong; verify parsed experience dates and job titles.
- Custom screening questions are often scored algorithmically — answer completely.
- Location field affects geo-based screening; use your actual metro area.
ANONYMOUS · UNFILTERED
What do employees actually say about OpenAI?
Real rants from real employees. Read before you apply.