Chao Zhao is a highly skilled software engineer with extensive experience in system optimization and database management. Currently serving as a Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI since June 2024, Chao previously worked at Rockset from June 2021 to June 2024, where contributions included leadership in the query optimizer team and significant optimizations in search workload performance. Prior experience at Facebook involved backend database access optimizations and the development of distributed database solutions. Chao started the professional journey at Intel Corporation in GPU virtualization and has also played a key role in organizing entrepreneurship initiatives at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Chao holds a Master of Science in Computer Systems from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.