PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Szymon Sidor

Also known as siemanko

Szymon Sidor is a Technical Fellow at OpenAI whose work spans scalable reinforcement learning, dexterous robotics and large reasoning models. After learning computer science with classmate Jakub Pachocki at Gdynia's Third High School, he studied at Cambridge and MIT and was a research scientist at OpenAI by November 2017. He coauthored a 2017 paper on evolution strategies, contributed to work on a dexterous robot hand, and helped develop the distributed training system for OpenAI Five's Dota 2 campaign. He was introduced as a co-creator of ChatGPT in May 2023 and announced his resignation from OpenAI in November 2023 after Sam Altman's dismissal. In 2025, he coauthored a paper on reasoning models, told high-school students to keep learning to code, and Sam Altman credited him with reinforcement learning, GPT-4 pretraining, and research infrastructure.

Now at
OpenAI
Works
20
Citations
3,744
h-index
10
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. By November 2017

    From Gdynia to OpenAI

    At the Third High School in Gdynia, Poland, he and classmate Jakub Pachocki learn computer science from the same teacher. He studies at the University of Cambridge and MIT, and by November 2017 he is a research scientist at OpenAI.

  2. 2017

    Evolution strategies at scale

    In March 2017, he coauthors “Evolution Strategies as a Scalable Alternative to Reinforcement Learning” with Tim Salimans, Jonathan Ho, Xi Chen and Ilya Sutskever. The method scales to over a thousand parallel workers and solves 3D humanoid walking in 10 minutes.

  3. 2018–2019

    A robot hand and OpenAI Five

    In 2018, he coauthors “Learning Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation,” whose policies train in simulation and transfer to a physical Shadow Dexterous Hand. The work uses the same distributed RL system as OpenAI Five. In April 2019, OpenAI Five becomes the first AI system to defeat the Dota 2 world champions; he helps develop its distributed training system and continuous-training tools.

  4. May 2023

    A co-creator of ChatGPT

    At a May 2023 IDEAS NCBR event at the University of Warsaw, he joins Sam Altman and Wojciech Zaremba and is introduced as a co-creator of ChatGPT and a research scientist at OpenAI.

  5. November 2023

    Resigning after Altman's dismissal

    After OpenAI's board dismisses Sam Altman in November 2023, he and Jakub Pachocki join Aleksander Mądry in announcing their resignations. Their support becomes one of the key factors in Altman's return.

  6. February 2025

    Large reasoning models in programming

    In February 2025, he coauthors “Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models.” The paper compares OpenAI o1 and an early o3 checkpoint with the specialized o1-ioi system for competitive programming.

  7. 2025

    Coding advice and GPT-4 training

    In August 2025, he tells the OpenAI Podcast that high-school students should still learn to code. In September 2025, Sam Altman credits him and Jakub Pachocki with scaling reinforcement learning for the Dota result, building much of the infrastructure for OpenAI's scientific discoveries, leading GPT-4 pretraining, and developing early reasoning ideas with Ilya Sutskever and Lukasz Kaiser.

  8. As of October 2026

    Technical Fellow at OpenAI

    As of October 2026, he is a Technical Fellow at OpenAI.

Career

  1. Since 2017OpenAIResearch Scientist, Technical Fellow

Education

  1. University of Cambridge
  2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. 22 of 133 people shaping AI with a former OpenAI role now work at AnthropicIncludes Szymon Sidor. Our estimates of where OpenAI recruits came from and where 133 people with former OpenAI roles work now, including the companies and labs they founded.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Szymon Sidor. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. Direct Form 990 pay in the latest returns of 39 nonprofits with AI people on this site is highest at $2.1M at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) (2024)Includes Szymon Sidor. IRS Form 990 compensation across 39 nonprofits with AI people on this site from 2012 to 2025: in the latest returns, Mozilla reports $6.1M including related-company pay (2024) and the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) leads direct nonprofit pay at $2.1M (2024).
  4. Among employers with 30+ full-time cases, OpenAI leads primary technical role H-1B pay at $310,000, and Amazon, Google and Microsoft file 57% of all casesIncludes OpenAI. Across 440,669 certified US H-1B filings from 44 employers (FY2020–FY2026), OpenAI leads primary technical role base pay at $310,000 and xAI leads overall base pay at $290,000.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Szymon Sidor yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Altman Praises Two Poles: OpenAI Hasn't Met a Problem They Can't Solve eu.36kr.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Sam Altman in Warsaw. Watch the talk with the head of OpenAI - IDEAS NCBR ideas-ncbr.pl. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Building Dota Bots That Beat Pros - OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Szymon Sidor, and Sam Altman | Y Combinator blog.ycombinator.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Evolution Strategies as a Scalable Alternative to Reinforcement Learning arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Learning Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Dota 2 with Large Scale Deep Reinforcement Learning arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Key Polish AI researchers leave OpenAI amidst leadership shake-up polskieradio.pl. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Competitive Programming with Large Reasoning Models arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Should High School Students Still Learn to Code? 'Absolutely,' Says OpenAI Engineer entrepreneur.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  10. Jakub and Szymon - Sam Altman blog.samaltman.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  11. Szymon Sidor — Technical Fellow OpenAI, człowiek za Dota 2 i GPT-4, którego prawie nikt nie zna 13ai.pl. Checked 21 October 2026.