What It's Really Like Working at OpenAI: A Former Engineer Speaks
An ex-OpenAI engineer shares surprising insights about company culture, rapid growth, and why he left.
Matilda
What It's Really Like Working at OpenAI: A Former Engineer Speaks What It’s Really Like Working at OpenAI If you’ve ever wondered what it’s really like working at OpenAI, a new first-hand account offers a rare peek behind the curtain. Calvin French-Owen, a former engineer at the company, recently published a detailed blog post recounting his one-year stint building tools like Codex—a powerful coding assistant designed to compete with tools like Cursor and Claude Code. In his candid reflection, French-Owen sheds light on both the inspiring and chaotic realities of working inside one of the world’s fastest-growing AI companies. From rapid growth pains to a uniquely startup-like culture, his experience reveals what prospective hires, AI enthusiasts, and the tech-curious want to know: what’s it like working at OpenAI during its most transformative phase? Image Credits:Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images Inside OpenAI’s Rapid Growth and Startup Culture OpenAI has become a tech giant almost overnight. According to French-Owen, the team balloon…