Abuse Investigator

About the Team

The Intelligence & Investigations group works to support OpenAI’s mission of making sure artificial general intelligence benefits everyone. The team does this by spotting, examining, and interrupting harmful or malicious use of OpenAI products. Its work sits at the crossroads of investigations, analytics, policy, engineering, and trust & safety, with a focus on identifying new threat patterns, building scalable detection approaches, and strengthening platform protections.

The team blends investigative know-how with technical analysis to surface new abuse behaviors, guide product and policy choices, and create long-lasting safeguards across OpenAI’s products.

About the Role

As an Abuse Investigator on the Intelligence & Investigations team, you will look into harmful activity on OpenAI’s platform, with emphasis on violent threats, organized abuse, and other serious risks to public safety. You will work through complex datasets, recognize abuse indicators, run investigations, and collaborate closely with policy, legal, engineering, and integrity partners to support enforcement and improve detection systems.

This is a deeply analytical position that calls for strong technical and investigative abilities. The right candidate will be comfortable handling large datasets directly, using SQL to identify trends and patterns, and applying Python or tools such as Codex to automate work, analyze information, and support investigations at scale. You’ll need to combine investigative judgment with data-led analysis to spot emerging threats and build proactive mitigation approaches.

The position is located in New York City and uses a hybrid in-office work arrangement.

Investigations may include sensitive material such as violent, extremist, sexual, or child-safety-related content. Candidates should be prepared to work in high-stakes settings and manage urgent escalations.

Key Responsibilities

• Review reports, leads, and escalations tied to violent threats, organized abuse, and other public-safety risks.
• Query large datasets with SQL and Codex to study user behavior, identify suspicious activity, and detect new abuse patterns.
• Use Python and Codex to streamline investigative workflows, process and analyze data, create abuse-detection methods, and improve operational efficiency.
• Build and improve abuse signals, behavior markers, and tracking approaches that support scalable detection and enforcement.
• Work with engineering teams to enhance internal tools, data pipelines, reporting, and investigative systems, while using metrics to assess workflow performance.
• Perform quick triage and investigation of urgent cases, applying sound judgment in unclear situations.
• Share findings and recommendations with Policy, Legal, Product, Engineering, and Leadership stakeholders.
• Turn investigation insights into longer-term product, policy, and safety improvements.
• Take part in an on-call rotation for time-sensitive investigations and threat assessment work.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of experience in investigations involving violent actors, terrorism-related activity, trust & safety, law-enforcement investigations, intelligence analysis, or similar fields, preferably with a public-safety angle.
• Strong SQL capability and proven use of data analysis to support investigations, spot trends, and answer difficult investigative questions.
• Hands-on experience with Python for data analysis, workflow automation, investigative tooling, or operational analytics.
• Background in building scalable processes, detection methods, or automated investigative approaches.
• Ability to work through complicated problems independently and communicate conclusions and recommendations clearly.
• Experience working with both technical and non-technical partners in fast-moving environments.
• History of presenting analytical work through reports, briefings, dashboards, or executive-style updates.
• Experience in technology, trust & safety, cybersecurity, intelligence, law enforcement, fraud, risk, or investigative settings.
• Interest in training or mentoring others on technical tools and workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience investigating violent threats, online abuse, extremist activity, or similar threat-actor behavior.
• Familiarity with analytics tools and investigative methods used in technology, intelligence, or trust & safety environments.
• Experience working with engineering teams to improve detection systems, data quality, or investigative tooling.
• Understanding of new risks linked to AI systems, online platforms, and adversarial actors.
• Experience creating data-driven methods for abuse detection and mitigation.

Additional Information

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company focused on ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The organization develops advanced AI systems and aims to deploy them safely through its products, with safety and human needs at the center of its mission. OpenAI values a wide range of perspectives, voices, and experiences.

OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Background checks will be handled according to applicable law. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in line with relevant 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, OpenAI reasonably believes criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with certain job duties, including safeguarding assigned hardware, returning company hardware and data upon separation, and maintaining confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. The role also requires access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data-security obligations.

Applicants who need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability may request one through the provided accommodation process.

The company’s global applicant privacy policy applies to applicants.

Compensation for this role is listed as $288K to $425K.