Audio Engineer, Live Video
OpenAI is hiring an Audio Engineer, Live Video in San Francisco, United States. It pays $240k-$266k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on OpenAI.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this role is Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- The posting mentions AI research, audio engineering and live broadcasting among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a senior role.
- OpenAI has 795 other open roles on Level.
- Posted within the past two weeks.
AI in this role
Design and operate resilient audio systems for high-profile live events, broadcasts, and AI-enabled production workflows.
About the Team
OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.
The Global Events Studio Team creates exceptional live and recorded video for Press, Marketing, Developer Experience, and Communications.
About the Role
The Audio Engineer will be the senior audio authority for high-profile livestreams, broadcast-style productions, studio recordings, public venue events, and critical on-location shoots. This person will design resilient audio systems, serve as A1 when failures are immediately visible, and deliver exceptional spoken-word audio across live, recorded, remote, and AI-enabled production workflows.
In this role, you will:
Own audio design and A1 execution for complex broadcasts, live stage events, podcasts, and critical film/on-location shoots
Build and operate redundant program, stream, multitrack, camera, backup-recorder, and archival audio paths with real-time monitoring and recovery procedures.
Mix full-duplex speech-to-speech audio between humans and AI models
Design, commission, standardize, document, and improve audio signal flow for studios, control rooms, event spaces, and portable production systems.
Rapidly assess unfamiliar venues and design reliable systems around acoustic, power, network, access, RF, and footprint constraints.
Lead rigorous preproduction: technical designs, input lists, patch plans, frequency plans, rehearsals, testing, monitoring, redundancy, and fallback capture.
Diagnose and repair signal-chain, DSP, synchronization, routing, RF, networking, and hardware faults during live production.
Lead audio crews and freelancers, challenge flawed technical plans, and communicate decisive options under pressure.
Own multitrack recording, editorial handoff, backup, delivery, and archival workflows across professional formats and specifications.
You might thrive in this role if you have:
8+ years engineering complex live, broadcast, and studio production, including high-profile livestreams, public venue events, design, configuration, and programming of physical audio infrastructure, and critical on-location filming or streaming.
Proven experience serving as A1 when failures are immediately visible and time for sophisticated workarounds is measured in seconds.
Expert command of gain structure, routing, EQ, dynamics, automixing, feedback control, real time noise suppression, mix-minus, IFB, intercom, playback, comms, and latency management.
Deep experience designing and troubleshooting redundant program, stream, multitrack, camera, backup-recorder, and archival audio paths.
Advanced proficiency with networked audio and DSP systems such as Dante, AVB, SMPTE ST 2110, Q-SYS, Yamaha, and Shure.
Strong IP-networking knowledge, including clocking, multicast, VLANs, QoS, and diagnosing failures across audio, control, and enterprise IT environments.
Expert wireless-microphone and RF coordination skills across crowded, high-consequence production environments, including frequency planning, antenna distribution, and intermodulation.
Ability to capture exceptional spoken-word audio for keynote presenters, executive livestream hosts, stage panels, podcasts, voiceover, remote guests, and acoustically difficult spaces.
Advanced microphone selection and placement skills, including lavalier concealment, boom technique, room treatment, noise control, and feedback prevention.
Ability to mix full-duplex speech-to-speech audio between humans and AI models for a variety of different event formats
Fluency with broadcast encoders, embedded audio, streaming protocols, conferencing platforms, and external distribution endpoints.
Expert-level understanding of room acoustics and a fundamental understanding of acoustic science.
Demonstrated success diagnosing and repairing signal-chain, DSP, synchronization, routing, RF, networking, and hardware faults during live production.
Strong multitrack recording, timecode, sync, metadata, editing, mixing, delivery, backup, and archival judgment across professional formats and loudness specifications.
Functional audio post-production skills, including dialogue cleanup, noise reduction, EQ, dynamics, mix revisions, and delivery preparation.
Ability to lead audio crews, support technical freelancers, challenge flawed technical plans, and communicate decisive options under pressure.
Willingness to work onsite, travel globally as needed, and support rehearsals or productions outside standard hours when critical productions require it.
Workplace & Location
This is an onsite role and will require 5 days a week in our San Francisco office, with global travel and support outside standard hours when critical productions require it.
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 opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.
How we rate this
Audio Engineer, Live Video at OpenAI rates 60 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Tell me about a research question you investigated. What did you find?
- Tell me about a project where audio engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where live broadcasting was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where dsp was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where rf management was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: AI Research, Audio Engineering, Live Broadcasting, Dsp, and Rf Management. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.
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