Software Security Architect, Operating Systems | Consumer Devices
San Francisco • FullTime
Posted 19d ago
About the job
OpenAI Consumer Devices is building the next generation of products that bring powerful AI into people’s everyday lives. The Operating Systems team is critical in this mission, turning sophisticated hardware and AI capabilities into a reliable, trusted platform where security is central. We are looking for a Software Security Architect to define the security architecture for OpenAI’s next-generation operating system. You’ll work alongside hardware security architects and partner with various teams to protect users, their devices, and their data. This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who can connect operating system internals, hardware-backed security, and real-world product constraints, shaping the platform’s trust model and setting the technical foundations for safe, private AI.
Responsibilities
- Define the operating system’s security architecture, trust boundaries, privilege model, and protections for sensitive user data.
- Partner with hardware security architects to integrate roots of trust, secure elements, trusted execution environments, and processor security capabilities into the operating system.
- Design foundational platform defenses, including secure boot, code signing, attestation, secure updates, key protection, and device recovery.
- Establish isolation and access controls across the kernel, applications, system services, and AI workloads.
- Define guardrails for how AI applications and agents access information, use sensors and tools, retain context, and act on a user’s behalf.
- Lead threat modeling and architecture reviews across the platform, translating emerging threats into practical, enforceable requirements.
- Prototype solutions, review security-critical systems code, and guide engineering teams through complex technical and product tradeoffs.
Requirements
- Deep experience designing or securing operating systems, kernels, embedded platforms, hypervisors, or other privileged systems software.
- Complex understanding of operating system internals, including memory protection, process isolation, executable loading, device drivers, and privilege boundaries.
- Experience building security architectures that span hardware, firmware, operating systems, applications, and cloud services.
- Practical expertise in secure boot, code signing, device identity, attestation, trusted execution, and hardware-backed key protection.
- Ability to write or review systems code in C, C++, Rust, or comparable languages, with a strong grasp of secure development and exploit mitigation.
- Ability to build rigorous threat models, influence cross-functional engineering teams, and communicate security tradeoffs clearly.
- Deep care for user privacy, personal agency, and building systems that earn trust through their design.