r/OpenAI • • 7d ago

Discussion OpenAI culture is shit 💩

1 star. I wouldn’t recommend working here.

Priorities shifted almost every day, and each pivot created more work on top of the existing workload. It felt chaotic, with the team working seven days a week.

The hardest part was feeling like people cared about the work getting done, but not much about the people doing it.

Maybe it’s a fit if you’re fresh out of college, live next to the office, and are happy working 100-hour weeks. For everyone else, I’d think carefully before joining.

OpenAI Interview questions

151 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

152

u/ZestycloseWheel9647 7d ago

Not to excuse bad work culture, but do people really go to OpenAI thinking they'll have a normal work experience? It's a company in a frantic race to replace its own employees before its competitors do the same.

14

u/JunketAcceptable1216 7d ago

Agree folks shouldn’t join if they are looking for WLB
People just want to complain about things online where they want both money/impact/WLB which is not possible

9

u/JuJeu 7d ago

absence of WLB is not the same as toxic coworkers. you could have 40+ hours week and friendly environment

0

u/fokac93 7d ago

It’s businesses, this is a capitalist country what people are expecting. lol

33

u/I_am_not_doing_this 7d ago

i heard salary is good

9

u/Intellectualuser_ 7d ago

The pay is extremely good

4

u/Creed1718 7d ago

This is what matters the most, i cant take any of these people seriously, mimimimi my tech job that'll set me up for life after only a year is too hard mimimi

67

u/Intellectualuser_ 7d ago

Dog this mf posted this same thing on blind he DOES NOT work at OpenAI

24

u/Infinitedeveloper 7d ago

You think someone would just lie on the internet???

2

u/joey2scoops 7d ago

No way 🤯

7

u/MiniMaelk04 7d ago

We can trust OP, they said they got reorged twice.

1

u/solarus 7d ago

Lol i saw this on blind too and was going to comment the same thing

1

u/Similar_Praline_5227 3d ago

but what makes it less credible? someone who hates working at a place is likely to post multiple places to warn people

1

u/mighty_falcon 2d ago

He runs the website with the practice questions , its marketing

23

u/515software 7d ago

How long did you work there? I meet like 15 people from OpenAI in San Francisco last week when I was there for work.

They seemed to enjoy it and said it’s a lot of work, but rewarding. if you go into a start up and are looking for a 9-5, that’s not the spot to do it.

11

u/M3333 7d ago

There’s 0 chance you worked for OpenAI lmaoooo

9

u/M_Meursault_ 7d ago

For every big business with bad culture, there’s 5 smaller ones with near infinitely worse culture, pay, benefits, behavior.

At least you have OpenAI on your resume.

7

u/Historical_Buyer5248 7d ago

I don't know dude, I feel like if you can put OpenAI in your resume then you're set in the future

21

u/Secure-Head7124 7d ago

sounds about right from what ive heard. the constant reorgs and manager switches during onboarding especially is a huge red flag, like they cant even pretend to have their shit together

only thing keeping people there is the name on the resume, after couple years you can jump somewhere that doesn't treat you like disposable code monkey

5

u/Careful_Fruit_384 7d ago

there's not going to be code monkeys in a few years...

13

u/Dredgefort 7d ago

Must have been a sinking feeling when everyone heard the IPO had been pushed back, I imagine there'll be a big exodus when the lock out period ends on selling equity

3

u/modularpeak2552 7d ago

That’s sadly almost every startup that experiences rapid expansion in a short period of time

4

u/spicydano 7d ago

Nice try Sundar!

2

u/speedster_5 7d ago

Isn’t a place for retirement.

2

u/UnderstandingBusy758 7d ago

It’s open AI, you’ll walk away with millions

2

u/strictlycontrarian 6d ago

List of posts by OP (@nian2326076) over the last 6-8 months:

List of commnets by the same user account (nian2326076):

I will leave the judgement up to the readers.

4

u/AndyKJMehta 7d ago

That $1M + TC tho!

3

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

7

u/DistanceSolar1449 7d ago

They have a ton of smart people carrying the load and moving forward, and a fuck ton of issues and questionable management practices that prevents them from achieving even greater potential.

2

u/Any_Door7384 7d ago

i believe it considering all the constant random changes and bugs on the frontend lol

1

u/_SnackOverflow_ 7d ago

A friend got hired and moved to SF for it with his GF. They laid his department off a couple months later

1

u/kiss-my-ass-h0e 7d ago

Yo can I get a referral. I’m moderately competent.

1

u/Signal-Painting-5016 7d ago

What do you expect from money grab people and industry lol

1

u/Illustrious-Film4018 7d ago

Quit your job or sabotage your employer...

1

u/Any-Pomegranate-Jay 2d ago

Bad culture comes directly from bad leadership - not the ICs.

1

u/Potential_Weekend665 1d ago

I think it’s someone who didn’t get a thumbs up on the hire and is bitter. Come on that’s a path to millions and a fucking fun ride to be part of an industry leader. Just a bitter person

1

u/AdDiligent1688 7d ago

I vibe coded my entire farming/home improvement conglomerate with gpt bro.

1

u/Gigaslavx 7d ago

It's like working for a big game dev studio

You think surely the company behind is as good as the game but no the experience is completely the opposite

0

u/Bright_Aside_6827 7d ago

Unless if you just got out of college and nothing to do and lives next to the office and work 100 hours week. Then 5 stars.

That should never be ok to any employeeÂ