Hardware Tools Engineer in San Francisco

About the Team The Hardware Health and Observability team owns the end-to-end health lifecycle of OpenAI’s global compute fleet. Our mission is to maximize healthy, usable compute across accelerator vendors, generations, cloud providers, and regions through reliable health signals, automated remediation, and scalable operational tooling. We build the systems that observe, detect, remediate, and verify hardware issues across GPUs, CPUs, networking, and platform infrastructure, enabling frontier model training and inference workloads to run reliably at hyperscale. We are the last line of defense for the success of OAI’s production and research workloads. About the Role On the Hardware Health and Observability team, you’ll build critical infrastructure that keeps OpenAI’s largest compute clusters healthy and operational at scale. Even small numbers of unhealthy systems can impact large-scale training and inference workloads. This team focuses on minimizing downtime, improving fleet efficiency, and ensuring compute resources remain continuously available to researchers and product teams. Engineers on this team own problems end-to-end, from defining health signals and debugging failures to building automated remediation systems that operate across millions of GPUs globally. In this role, you will: Define and maintain health signals across GPUs, CPUs, networking, and platform infrastructure. Build and evolve health checks that detect, remediate, and verify failures at scale. Ensure critical health checks execute with minimal latency to maximize workload uptime. Investigate hardware failures and system-level issues across large-scale compute environments. Own node lifecycle workflows including drain, quarantine, repair, RMA, and return-to-service processes. Build automation and tooling that enables global cluster management with minimal manual intervention. Partner with workload, reliability, and provider teams to integrate health signals into training and inference system

About the Team OpenAI’s Central Procurement – Hardware Operations team is building scalable, AI-enabled operating foundations for a rapidly growing hardware footprint. We help the business move quickly while maintaining the data quality and controls needed to manage financial and operational risk responsibly. As OpenAI scales across R&D, new-product introduction, manufacturing, and third-party custody models, we are building the foundations to absorb complexity without adding unnecessary friction. That means establishing practical standards, strengthening discipline where it matters, using AI thoughtfully, and continuously improving how teams manage hardware operations. About the Role We are hiring an Asset Compliance Program Lead to establish the cross-business framework that gives OpenAI reliable lifecycle visibility over hardware-related financial assets and capital equipment. You will define the controls, systems roadmap, and evidence practices needed to manage those assets within OpenAI’s financial-control scope. This is a senior individual-contributor role in Central Procurement – Hardware Operations within Finance. Distinct from sourcing and transaction execution, you will partner with hardware business units, Accounting, Financial Risk Management, Procurement, contract manufacturers, and other third-party custodians to deploy practical operating mechanisms. These mechanisms will connect how assets are purchased, built, received, moved, held, verified, and retired with the ownership, data, reporting, and evidence needed for financial governance. The role covers those assets regardless of location or custody, including manufacturing equipment and tooling, supplier- and contract-manufacturer-held assets, leased assets, and other third-party-held equipment. You will stay close to the operational details—how assets move, where records diverge, which controls are not working, and where evidence is incomplete—and use that view to strengthen processes, accountab

About the Team The Marketing team helps OpenAI bring products, research, and company priorities to the world with clarity, creativity, and impact. We partner across Product, Research, Design, Creative, Communications, Finance, Legal, and Go-to-Market teams to translate complex technology into work that people can understand, trust, and use. Marketing Strategy & Operations builds the operating systems that help this work move with focus and speed. We connect priorities to plans, plans to resourcing, and resourcing to execution, so teams can make better decisions earlier and stay aligned as priorities evolve. About the Role We’re looking for a Strategy & Operations Lead, Hardware Marketing to help build and run the operating system for OpenAI’s Hardware Marketing work. This role will partner closely with Hardware Marketing leadership, Product Marketing, Product, Design, Creative, Production, Communications, Finance, Legal, and external partners to bring structure to a fast-moving, highly cross-functional product area. You will help the team clarify priorities, build plans, manage intake, track decisions, surface risks, frame tradeoffs, and keep critical workstreams moving from planning through operating readiness. This is a strong fit for someone who can operate independently in ambiguity, build practical systems from scratch, and move fluidly between strategy and execution. Experience with complex product launches or sensitive, cross-functional product areas is preferred. This role is based in San Francisco. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: Build and run the core operating rhythm for Hardware Marketing, including planning cycles, planning reviews, weekly priorities, decision forums, risk tracking, and leadership-ready updates. Partner with Hardware Marketing leadership to translate business and product priorities into clear workstreams, owners, milestones,

About the Team OpenAI is building Procurement of the future: one that uses AI-enabled systems, clean data, and scalable processes to help the business absorb increasing complexity, speed, volume, and throughput — while enabling teams across OpenAI to operate more strategically and at greater scale. The Hardware Procurement Operations team supports the operational flow of goods and hardware purchasing across OpenAI's hardware business units. We help teams turn business needs into controlled, accurate, and executable procurement activity, from request intake through purchase orders, supplier coordination, change management, receiving readiness, and downstream invoice support. As OpenAI scales, we are building procurement operations that can support changing hardware needs, new business unit priorities, and increasing operational complexity. That means creating practical standards where they help, preserving flexibility where the business requires it, and continuously improving how requests, suppliers, POs, data, and controls move through our systems. About the Role As a Senior Manager of Procurement Operations focused on Hardware, you will own procurement operations for one or more assigned hardware business units. You will be the day-to-day DRI for hardware and goods procurement activity, leading work from intake through purchase requests, POs, supplier needs, changes, receiving readiness, and operational escalations. This is a hands-on operator-builder role for someone who understands the practical complexity of hardware and goods procurement and can both run the work and redesign how the work gets done. You will keep work moving while improving the operating model through better systems, workflows, automation, AI-enabled processes, controls, metrics, and operating leverage. You will evaluate how people, process, policy, systems, data, fiscal controls, and accounting practices come together, and you will work closely with other Central Procurement and BU Procurement

About the Team The Stargate team is responsible for building the physical infrastructure that powers large-scale AI systems. We design and deliver next-generation data centers optimized for dense compute clusters, advanced networking, and rapidly evolving hardware platforms. This work sits at the intersection of hardware engineering, systems architecture, and infrastructure execution—translating cutting-edge compute roadmaps into scalable, production-ready environments. Our teams partner across silicon vendors, server and storage OEMs, networking teams, and data center engineering organizations to bring new capacity online quickly, reliably, and at global scale. About the Role We are seeking a CPU & Storage Technical Lead to define and drive the server compute and storage architecture strategy for Stargate infrastructure. In this role, you will own technical direction across CPU platforms, memory configurations, local and disaggregated storage systems, and their integration into large-scale AI clusters. You will evaluate vendor roadmaps, lead platform tradeoff decisions, and ensure compute and storage systems are optimized for training, inference, and supporting services. You will work cross-functionally with hardware engineering, performance modeling, networking, supply chain, and deployment teams, as well as external partners such as AMD, Intel, OEMs, ODMs, and storage vendors. This is a highly strategic role for someone who can operate deeply at the component level while also driving long-range infrastructure decisions. Key Responsibilities Own CPU and storage technical strategy for Stargate compute infrastructure across current and future generations. Evaluate CPU platforms across performance, efficiency, memory bandwidth, PCIe topology, cost, and roadmap alignment. Define storage architectures for AI environments, including boot media, local NVMe, shared storage, caching tiers, metadata services, and high-performance data pipelines. Drive server platform de

About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops system and infrastructure solutions tailored to the demands of advanced AI workloads. We work across the full stack—from silicon to system integration—partnering closely with internal teams and external vendors to define and deliver next-generation AI infrastructure. Our team focuses on defining scalable, high-performance system architectures and reference designs that balance performance, cost, and operational efficiency across rapidly evolving technologies. About the Role We are seeking a 3P Architect to define and drive rack- and cluster-level reference designs in collaboration with external partners. This role is responsible for translating workload requirements and system-level goals into concrete architectures, aligning partners on critical design attributes, and ensuring vendor roadmaps meet our infrastructure needs. You will work closely with performance modeling and internal architecture teams to evaluate tradeoffs, while owning the end-to-end definition and execution of third-party system designs. This includes identifying gaps in current technologies, driving vendor development, and shaping future infrastructure capabilities. This role requires strong system intuition, cross-functional leadership, and the ability to operate effectively across internal teams and external ecosystems. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance. Key Responsibilities Define rack- and cluster-level reference architectures for AI infrastructure deployments. Translate workload requirements into clear system design specifications and partner deliverables. Collaborate with performance modeling teams to evaluate architectural tradeoffs and system behaviors. Align internal stakeholders and external partners on critical system attributes (performance, cost, power, reliability, scalability). Identify gaps in current technology offerings and dr

About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops system and infrastructure solutions optimized for advanced AI workloads. We collaborate across research, software, and external hardware partners to design and deploy next-generation AI systems at scale. Our team works closely with silicon vendors and system partners to evaluate emerging technologies, validate performance characteristics, and ensure that hardware capabilities translate effectively to real-world AI workloads. About the Role We are seeking a 3P Hardware Architecture Expert with deep expertise in GPU and accelerator architectures to engage directly with silicon vendors and guide hardware decisions for AI infrastructure. In this role, you will evaluate architectural tradeoffs across compute, memory, and interconnect systems, translating vendor specifications into real-world workload impact. You will play a critical role in early silicon evaluation, benchmarking, and performance validation, helping ensure that next-generation hardware meets the needs of our workloads. This role is highly hands-on and requires both deep technical understanding and the ability to engage at a high level with partners such as NVIDIA and AMD on architectural direction and design tradeoffs. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance. Key Responsibilities Engage deeply with silicon vendors (e.g NVIDIA & AMD) on GPU and accelerator architecture tradeoffs. Analyze and interpret performance, power, and efficiency characteristics of next-generation hardware. Translate vendor specifications into expected real-world performance for AI workloads. Evaluate architectural aspects including: compute throughput and utilization memory systems (HBM, cache hierarchies, bandwidth constraints) data types and precision tradeoffs (FP16, BF16, FP8, etc.) interconnect and scaling behavior. Run benchmarks and profiling to validate hardware performance a

About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops system and infrastructure solutions designed for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. We work closely with research, software, and external hardware partners to shape the next generation of AI systems, from silicon through full-scale deployments. Our team focuses on understanding and optimizing performance across the full system stack—ensuring that architectural decisions are grounded in rigorous, quantitative analysis of real-world workloads. About the Role We are seeking a Performance Modeling Lead to build and lead a small, high-impact team responsible for answering forward-looking architectural questions across AI infrastructure systems. You will develop modeling frameworks and methodologies to evaluate system-level tradeoffs and guide key design decisions. Your work will directly influence reference architectures, vendor designs, and long-term infrastructure strategy. This role sits at the intersection of AI workloads, system architecture, and quantitative modeling, and requires strong technical judgment, ownership, and the ability to translate complex analysis into clear, actionable guidance. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance. Key Responsibilities Build and own a performance modeling framework/toolchain to evaluate AI systems across multiple levels of abstraction. Analyze and quantify architectural tradeoffs across compute, memory, networking, storage, and system topology. Develop performance models to guide decisions on: scale-up vs. scale-out architectures interconnect and network design memory hierarchy and system balance. Translate modeling outputs into clear recommendations for internal teams and external hardware vendors. Influence reference designs and vendor roadmaps through data-driven insights. Partner closely with machine learning, systems, and hardware teams to understand workload characte

About the Team The Consumer Devices team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world. We work at the intersection of custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, cloud services, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and product design to deliver reliable, production-ready devices at scale. Within Consumer Devices, Hardware Engineering eXperience, or HEX, is a new bootstrapped team building the environments, applications, compute, product-data systems, and workflows that let hardware engineers do their work without needing to troubleshoot the machinery underneath. HEX owns virtual engineering environments, HPC/GPU compute, storage, networking, licensing, MCAD/ECAD/CAE applications, PLM, product data, automation, validation, and support as one connected system. About the Role As a Staff PLM & Engineering Applications Engineer, you will be one of the first technical builders of HEX and the primary counterpart to the HEX lead. You will own the engineering-application and product-data side of the hardware engineering experience, with an initial focus on NX, Teamcenter, licensing, parts import, integrations, packaging, validation, and user workflows. This is not a traditional Teamcenter administration role and not a Corporate IT application-support role. You will take complex, fragile workflows and turn them into reliable engineering systems. This role is highly hands-on and systems-oriented. You will not inherit a mature environment and support queue. You will help build a fresh one, replacing manual setup guides, tribal knowledge, repeated support issues, and team handoffs with tested automation and reliable workflows. In This Role, You Will Own the technical architecture, deployment, configuration, integration, validation, and long-term operation of NX and Teamcenter. Build reliable workflows for parts import, product-data migration, metadata quality, BOMs, revisions, lifecycle states, and releas

We are hiring a Security Software Engineer to design and implement the hardware-backed security foundations used across OpenAI’s device ecosystem. A central focus of this role is hardening the boundary between our policy systems and the HSMs that protect sensitive cryptographic keys. This boundary determines which operations may be performed, what may be signed, which policies must be satisfied, and how changes to trusted software and policy are authorized. You will develop security-critical software and firmware within, or immediately adjacent to, an HSM trust boundary. Depending on your background, this may include HSM trusted applications, firmware services, cryptographic mechanisms, device drivers, PKCS#11 components, secure-provisioning protocols, or signing-policy enforcement systems. This is a hands-on software-engineering role. You will be expected to design systems, write and review production code, debug across hardware and software boundaries, and carry projects from initial requirements through deployment. It is not an HSM administration, PKI operations, compliance, or architecture-only position. In This Role, You Will Design and implement security-critical software and firmware for HSMs, secure elements, trusted execution environments, and hardware roots of trust. Build and harden the policy-to-HSM boundary responsible for authorizing certificate issuance and cryptographic signing operations. Develop HSM trusted applications, firmware components, host interfaces, device drivers, SDKs, or cryptographic service integrations. Implement or extend cryptographic interfaces such as PKCS#11, OpenSSL providers or engines, platform key-storage APIs, or comparable hardware-security interfaces. Build firmware and software that cryptographically enforces key generation, provisioning, usage, rotation, recovery, and destruction policies. Design and implement HSM-backed certificate authority, code-signing, key-management, and device-identity systems. Develop end-to-end

About the Team The Consumer Devices team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world. We work at the intersection of custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, and cloud services to deliver reliable, production-ready devices at scale. About the role We are looking for an Operating Systems Engineer to build and harden the OS foundations for OpenAI products. We are especially interested in experienced, passionate, and innovative operating systems developers who thrive on building foundational platform software and solving hard problems in security, privacy, performance, power, and reliability. You will work across the OS kernel, core OS services, security and privacy primitives, performance and power, and the frameworks that connect applications and UI to the system. This role emphasizes deep debugging and systems ownership from development through production. You will collaborate closely with embedded, firmware, hardware, application, and product engineering teams. Experience with hardware bring-up is a plus, but not required. What you will do Work on end-to-end OS capabilities spanning the OS kernel, userspace services, application frameworks, UI toolkits, and application-facing APIs. Develop, integrate, and maintain OS components, both kernel-bound and in userspace, including scheduling, memory management, filesystems, drivers, IPC/RPC mechanisms, and security-relevant subsystems. Build and maintain core OS services and daemons (init, service management, device discovery, networking primitives, time, logging, update hooks, crash handling, and so on). Design and implement security and privacy mechanisms: Secure boot and measured boot integration points (where applicable). Mandatory access control and sandboxing. Secrets management, secure storage, key handling, and least-privilege service design. Privacy-preserving telemetry, data minimization, and user-consent oriented system behaviors. Establish a perfo

About the Team The Consumer Products team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world. We work at the intersection of custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, and cloud services to deliver reliable, production-ready devices at scale. Within Consumer Products, the camera stack is a critical sensing component. The team partners closely with electrical engineering, silicon vendors, systems, and higher-level perception and product teams to bring up new hardware, stabilize capture pipelines, and ensure camera systems are robust, debuggable, and ready for real-world deployment. This work spans early prototypes through production, with a strong emphasis on correctness, repeatability, and long-term reliability. About the Role As a Camera Firmware Engineer, you will own low-level camera enablement on custom hardware—from early board bring-up through stable production capture. You will develop and maintain the firmware and software that makes camera sensors reliable, controllable, and debuggable, forming the foundation for higher-level camera pipelines and product features. This role is highly hands-on and systems-oriented. You will work close to the hardware, diagnose real-world timing and integration issues, and build tooling that accelerates iteration across the entire camera stack. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We follow a hybrid work model with four days per week in the office and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In This Role, You Will Bring up new camera sensors and modules on prototype and production boards, including link stability, sensor control, and correct power, reset, and clock sequencing. Develop and maintain low-level camera software, including sensor drivers, board configuration, and camera subsystem integration across hardware revisions. Enable and validate core capture paths for development and production, including RAW capture for debugging, still capture, and hardware-

About the Team The HR Business Partner (HRBP) team at OpenAI helps shape how our organization operates and performs. We work alongside senior leaders and their teams to design effective organizations, strengthen leadership capabilities, and help people do their best work. Our expertise spans leadership coaching, organizational design, talent strategy, employee relations, and change management. Our work is grounded in a deep understanding of OpenAI’s Contributions & Impact (C&I) culture and the needs of teams working at the frontier of AI and hardware. We operate with urgency, empathy, and sound judgment. We value sincerity over polish, collaboration over ego, and a relentless focus on meaningful impact. About the Role We’re looking for an experienced HR Business Partner to support OpenAI’s Consumer Device's team. This is an opportunity to partner closely with leaders and teams doing highly ambitious, multidisciplinary work. You’ll serve as a trusted advisor as the organization builds, collaborates, and evolves—helping create the conditions for people and teams to perform at their best. The role combines strategic advising with hands-on partnership. You’ll help leaders think through organizational questions, coach managers through complex situations, strengthen people practices, and make thoughtful trade-offs that balance the needs of our people, teams, and mission. This is an individual contributor role. Come build with us. Your Key Responsibilities Shape high-performing, resilient teams: Partner with leaders on organizational design, talent planning, and ways of working that support strong performance and sustainable teams. Advise with context and judgment: Develop a deep understanding of the organization and provide thoughtful guidance on people, leadership, and organizational matters. Collaborate across OpenAI: Work closely with fellow HRBPs, People centers of excellence, and cross-functional partners to create a cohesive employee experience rooted in hum

About the Team Our Robotics team is focused on unlocking general-purpose robotics and pushing towards AGI-level intelligence in dynamic, real-world settings. Working across the entire model stack, we integrate cutting-edge hardware and software to explore a broad range of robotic form factors. We strive to seamlessly blend high-level AI capabilities with the constraints of physical systems to improve peoples’ lives. About the Role We are seeking a Mechanical Design Engineer to lead the development of motor mechanical designs and prototype hardware for advanced robotic systems. You will own stator and rotor mechanical development from early concepts and detailed design through hands-on builds and prototype validation, partnering closely with electromagnetic, electrical, test, and manufacturing teams. This role focuses on the design, integration, and validation of motor components and prototype processes, including laminations, stack assemblies, bobbins, winding interfaces, and fixtures. You will help drive motor development from initial design through repeatable low-volume builds while establishing the tooling, work instructions, and validation practices needed for future robotic platforms. This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week. In this role, you will Own stator and rotor mechanical designs and released CAD and drawings, including geometry, interfaces, fits, tolerances, retention, assembly access, and mechanical validation. Develop laminations, stack assembly methods, bobbins, and winding interfaces that control alignment, insulation, conductor placement, and end-turn packaging. Design, fabricate, and debug fixtures for winding, stacking, assembly, alignment, and inspection. Build and troubleshoot prototypes. Use measurements, defects, rework, and assembly effort to improve designs and processes. Establish low-volume prototype production with equipment, build sequences, work instructions, revision control, traceability

About the Team Our Robotics team is focused on unlocking general-purpose robotics and pushing towards AGI-level intelligence in dynamic, real-world settings. Working across the entire model stack, we integrate cutting-edge hardware and software to explore a broad range of robotic form factors. We strive to seamlessly blend high-level AI capabilities with the constraints of physical systems to improve peoples’ lives. About the Role We are seeking a Mechanical Engineer to design, build, and own the mechanical side of our robotic actuator dynamometer and test infrastructure. You will create the test stands, couplings, fixtures, load paths, guarding, and serviceable lab hardware that enable rigorous characterization of robotic actuators. This role combines precision mechanical design with hands-on lab work. You will take robotic actuator test infrastructure from requirements and analysis through CAD, fabrication, assembly, commissioning, and iteration, partnering closely with electrical and software engineers to deliver safe, flexible, high-uptime test cells. In this role, you will Own the mechanical architecture of dynamometer and actuator test cells, including frames, bases, load paths, alignment, guarding, and serviceability. Design dynamometer structures, robotic actuator fixtures, load-motor mounts, couplings, shafts, bearings, adapters, and torque-reaction hardware. Translate robotic actuator test requirements into robust mechanical systems for torque, speed, thermal, durability, backdrive, efficiency, and failure testing. Perform first-principles analysis and simulation for stiffness, strength, fatigue, vibration, thermal growth, critical speed, and safety factors. Create precise, repeatable alignment strategies that protect test articles, load machines, sensors, and couplings. Design modular fixturing that supports rapid changeover across actuator and motor variants without compromising measurement quality. Work closely with electrical engineers on cable routing