Physical Design Methodology Engineer in San Francisco

About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. Building on efforts like Jalapeño, the team is developing future generations of AI-native silicon and tightly integrated systems to power the next generation of frontier models. By co-designing chips, systems, tools, and methodologies, the team helps deliver faster, more efficient, and production-ready hardware for OpenAI’s supercomputing platform. About the Role We are seeking a highly skilled Physical Design Engineer with deep expertise in physical design and methodology. This individual contributor role sits within our physical design team and is central to delivering power, performance, and area (PPA) optimized datapath and interconnect solutions for next-generation AI accelerators. You’ll work closely with RTL designers to define and execute on physical design strategies. You will develop tools, flows and methodologies to increase team productivity. Your work will directly impact silicon’s performance and cost efficiency, as well as the team’s execution velocity and quality. In this role, you will: Develop, build and own tools, flows and methodologies for physical implementation Own physical implementation of floorplan blocks from floorplanning to final signoff Collaborate with RTL designers to drive optimal block implementation solutions Analyze and optimize design for timing, power, and area trade-offs, working in collaboration with EDA vendors and ASIC partners Qualifications: BS w/ 4+ or MS with 2+ years or PhD with 0-1 year(s) of relevant industry experience in physical design and methodology development Demonstrated success in taping out complex silicon designs Hands-on experience with block physical implementation and PPA convergence Strong coding experience with python, bazel, TCL Strong experience building physical design tools, flows and methodologies Strong understanding of microarchitecture, RTL design,

About the Team OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team partners with leading semiconductor companies to deploy production-grade AI systems across the entire chip design lifecycle: design, verification, and physical design. We operate at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development, embedding deeply with customers to translate frontier model capabilities into systems that materially improve engineering workflows and accelerate innovation. Our work turns early, high-touch deployments into repeatable solution patterns, reference architectures, and evaluation practices that scale across the semiconductor ecosystem. About the Role We are seeking a highly skilled Physical Design Engineer to join our semiconductor-focused Forward Deployed Engineering team. This is a senior IC role that will begin with a strong emphasis on physical design expertise, technical judgment, advisory leverage, and customer credibility, with the expectation that the person will grow into a broader Forward Deployed Engineering role over time. In the near term, you will serve as the team’s physical design SME across semiconductor deployments: helping FDEs, Product, and Research understand backend implementation workflows, pressure-test AI-assisted solution ideas against real physical design constraints, and raise the quality of our customer-facing technical work. You will help the broader team build fluency in implementation flows, EDA tooling, signoff methodology, and the trade-offs that shape physical design decisions in practice. Over time, we expect this role to expand beyond SME support into broader FDE ownership: partnering directly with customers, shaping deployment strategy, building and iterating production-grade AI systems, driving technical workstreams, and helping turn high-touch semiconductor deployments into repeatable solutions. This is a strong fit for someone who brings deep physical design expertise today and is excited to grow into a customer-facing, syst

About the Team OpenAI develops models that can reason through complex problems and hardware designed for the demands of advanced AI. AI for Chips connects these efforts: applying increasingly capable AI systems to the work of semiconductor engineering. Our goal is to help engineers develop better chips and shorten design cycles. This work brings research, model training, and hardware expertise together to build tools that engineers can use on real designs, with correctness and measurable performance at the center. About the Role We’re hiring a Research Engineer to help OpenAI models solve chip-design problems through reinforcement learning, tool use, and evaluation. You’ll own experiments from the initial idea through implementation and analysis. That means building environments and evaluations, running training, investigating failures, and using the results to decide what to try next. You’ll also build the software needed to make those experiments reliable and reproducible. We value strong coding fundamentals, careful experimental judgment, and the ability to make progress independently. Prior chip-design experience is helpful, but you can learn the domain alongside the team’s hardware specialists. In this role, you will: Build RL environments and evaluations for tasks such as RTL generation, design verification, and physical design optimization. Develop and test approaches that help models use chip-design tools and improve power, performance, and area while preserving correctness. Design experiments, establish baselines, and measure whether improvements hold up on new tasks and designs. Investigate failures across model behavior, rewards, evaluation tools, and experiment infrastructure. Improve iteration speed through better tooling, faster evaluations, and proxy rewards that reflect the outcomes we care about. Turn successful experiments into reusable research code and training workflows, working closely with researchers and engineers. You might thrive in this ro

About the Team OpenAI develops models that can reason through complex problems and hardware designed for the demands of advanced AI. AI for Chips connects these efforts: applying increasingly capable AI systems to the work of semiconductor engineering. Our goal is to help engineers develop better chips and shorten design cycles. This work brings research, model training, and hardware expertise together to build tools that engineers can use on real designs, with correctness and measurable performance at the center. About the Role We’re hiring a Software Engineer to build the research infrastructure and tooling that help OpenAI models design silicon. You’ll turn chip-design workflows into reliable environments for reinforcement learning and evaluation, and make it easier for researchers to run experiments and iterate on new ideas. You’ll move between software engineering, tool integration, and open research problems. We value strong coding fundamentals, clear technical judgment, and independent execution. Prior chip-design experience is helpful, but you can learn the domain alongside the team’s hardware specialists. In this role, you will: Build and maintain infrastructure for reinforcement learning environments, evaluations, and long-running experiments. Integrate electronic design automation (EDA) tools into workflows for RTL generation, verification, and physical design optimization. Improve experiment reliability, reproducibility, observability, and performance; debug failures across tools, services, and infrastructure. Develop tooling and model harnesses that let researchers test ideas quickly and measure correctness and power, performance, and area (PPA). Collaborate with researchers and engineers to turn successful experiments into reusable systems and training workflows. Own ambiguous projects end to end, communicate progress, and use results to guide the next iteration. You might thrive in this role if you: Have strong software engineering fundamentals, with

About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. Building on efforts like Jalapeño, the team is developing future generations of AI-native silicon and tightly integrated systems to power the next generation of frontier models. By co-designing chips, systems, tools, and methodologies, the team helps deliver faster, more efficient, and production-ready hardware for OpenAI’s supercomputing platform. About the Role We are looking for a highly experienced RTL engineer to own critical on- and off-chip interconnect components for our custom AI accelerator platform. You will drive the microarchitecture and RTL implementation of scalable on-chip communication fabrics connecting high-bandwidth compute, memory, and I/O subsystems as well as purpose-built off-chip interfaces and protocols needed to enable custom computing at scale. This is a senior, hands-on engineering role with broad technical ownership. You will drive design from requirements through the full silicon lifecycle, from architecture definition and performance analysis through RTL implementation, verification closure, physical design convergence, bring-up, and production readiness. You will plan and oversee the work of junior engineers and help drive and develop productive engineering relationships with external partners and help manage partner execution. 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 to new employees. In this role, you will: Own the microarchitecture, RTL design, and delivery of major SoC interconnect components, including network-on-chip fabrics, switches, routers, bridges, protocol adapters, arbiters, and traffic-management logic as well as off-chip protocol bridges and interfaces. Drive third party engagements to develop novel networking and interface protocols and silicon IP while ensuring high quality and de

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 Senior Actuator Design and Integration Engineer to lead the development of custom electromechanical actuators for advanced robotic systems. You will own actuator development from early architecture and concept generation through prototype validation and system integration, partnering closely with mechanical, electrical, controls, firmware, reliability, and manufacturing teams. This role focuses on the design, integration, and validation of precision electromechanical systems, including motors, transmissions, sensing, structural components, and thermal architectures. You will help drive actuator development across the full engineering lifecycle while establishing scalable design, test, and integration practices 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 Lead the architecture, design, and integration of custom robotic actuators, including motors, transmissions, sensing, thermal systems, structural components, and packaging. Define actuator requirements and system-level trade studies around torque density, bandwidth, efficiency, thermal performance, backdrivability, inertia, reliability, manufacturability, and cost. Design precision electromechanical assemblies with strong attention to tolerances, alignment, load paths, thermal expansion, sealing, wear, and serviceability. Drive actuator integration into robotic systems, partnering closely with controls, firmware, electrical, and robotics software teams to optimize closed-loop pe

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 Senior Mechanical Engineer to lead the design, integration, and sustaining engineering of mechanical subsystems in robotic platforms. You will work closely with experienced engineers and cross-functional partners to set functional requirements, develop and iterate on hardware to meet program expectations. This role is aimed at candidates with strong fundamentals in mechanical system design — including tolerance, alignment, load paths, wear, and failure modes — and robotics. You will contribute to real hardware programs moving from prototype through early production. You will lead both new subsystem development and ongoing improvements to existing systems based on testing, field performance, and manufacturing feedback. This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week. In this role, you will Lead the design and iteration of mechanical subsystems, including structures, mechanisms, and actuators. Create and maintain CAD models, assemblies, and drawings with appropriate tolerancing and documentation. Build and test prototypes, supporting debugging of mechanical issues such as fit, alignment, friction, and wear. Assist in developing test methods and executing validation to evaluate performance, durability, and failure modes. Work with cross-functional teams to integrate mechanical components with sensors, actuators, and control systems. Support transition of designs from prototype to manufacturable assemblies, incorporating DFM and DFA considerations. Collaborate with manufacturing partners

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 an Actuator Gear Design Engineer to lead the development of custom gears and gear stages for advanced robotic systems. You will own actuator development from early architecture and concept generation through prototype validation and system integration, partnering closely with mechanical, electrical, controls, firmware, and reliability teams. You will partner with external suppliers and internal manufacturing to create full gearbox assemblies. This role focuses on the design, integration, and validation of precision gearing, including broader knowledge around motor electromagnetics, transmission types, sensing, structural components, and thermal architectures. You will help drive actuator development across the full engineering lifecycle while establishing scalable design, test, and integration practices 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: Lead the architecture, design, and integration of custom robotic actuator gearing. Define actuator requirements and system-level trade studies around torque density, bandwidth, efficiency, thermal performance, back drivability, inertia, reliability, manufacturability, and cost. Design precision electromechanical assemblies with strong attention to tolerances, alignment, load paths, thermal expansion, sealing, wear, and serviceability. Drive actuator integration into robotic systems, partnering closely with controls, firmware, electrical, and robotics software teams to optimize closed-lo

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 senior Actuator Electromagnetic Design Engineer to lead the development of custom electromechanical actuators for advanced robotic systems. You will own actuator development from early architecture and concept generation through prototype validation and system integration, partnering closely with mechanical, electrical, controls, firmware, reliability, and manufacturing teams. This role focuses on the design, integration, and validation of precision electromechanical systems, including motors, transmissions, sensing, structural components, and thermal architectures. You will help drive actuator development across the full engineering lifecycle while establishing scalable design, test, and integration practices 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: Lead the architecture, design, and integration of custom robotic actuators, including the design, simulation, integration and sourcing of custom electromagnetic components. Define actuator requirements and system-level trade studies around torque density, bandwidth, efficiency, thermal performance, inertia, reliability, manufacturability, and cost. Design precision electromechanical assemblies with strong attention to tolerances, alignment, load paths, thermal expansion, sealing, wear, and serviceability. Drive actuator integration into robotic systems, partnering closely with controls, firmware, electrical, and robotics software teams to optimize closed-loop performance. Devel

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 lead the engineering, characterization, and productionization of flexible and compliant components in robotic platforms. You will partner closely with cross-functional teams to translate material concepts into engineered subsystems that meet functional, durability, and manufacturing requirements. This role focuses on understanding how soft materials behave in dynamic mechanical systems — including fatigue, creep, hysteresis, wear, and environmental degradation — and designing assemblies that perform consistently at scale. You will work with materials such as elastomers, foams, thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs), engineered fabrics, knitted and woven textiles, cables, and other flexible load-bearing or transmission elements, integrating them with rigid hardware, sensors, and actuators using fabrication methods such as bonding, molding, lamination, and sewn assemblies. This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week. In this role, you will Design and integrate compliant or flexible materials into mechanical subsystems and rigid hardware interfaces. Leverage FEA tools to characterize material behavior under operational loads, including tension, compression, abrasion, fatigue, and environmental exposure. Develop test methods and validation protocols to evaluate durability, performance, and failure modes of soft components. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to transition early prototypes into manufacturable designs. Source and evaluate materials in collaboratio

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 people's lives. About the Role We are seeking a lead thermal simulation engineer to help accelerate the design and development of next-generation robotic systems through modeling, simulation, and analysis. You will work closely with mechanical, electrical, controls, and robotics engineers to evaluate designs before hardware is built, identify risks early, and guide critical architecture decisions. This role spans structural and thermal analysis and design across robotic subsystems including actuators, mechanisms, structures, electronics, and integrated systems. You will develop simulation workflows that improve engineering velocity, increase confidence in design decisions, and help us build more capable, reliable, and manufacturable robotic platforms. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. This role will be expected to be in office 4 days per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: Perform thermal simulations to assess heat generation, cooling strategies, thermal interfaces, and system-level thermal performance Partner with mechanical, electrical, and controls engineers to influence design decisions early in development Build simulation models to evaluate robotic actuators, transmissions, mechanisms, structures, soft goods, and integrated assemblies Correlate simulation results with physical testing and develop methodologies to improve model accuracy Support architecture trade studies by evaluating design concepts before hardware is built Develop simulation workflows, standards, and best practices that scale across the robotics o

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 The Industrial Compute team is responsible for building the physical infrastructure that powers OpenAI’s largest-scale AI systems. We design, deploy, and operate next-generation compute infrastructure across a rapidly expanding global footprint, combining OpenAI-owned infrastructure with strategic cloud and infrastructure partners to support frontier AI workloads. As our infrastructure footprint grows, operational excellence across third-party providers becomes increasingly critical. Our team ensures external infrastructure partners consistently deliver the reliability, performance, and operational maturity required to support OpenAI’s rapidly expanding compute environment. About the Role We are seeking a Hardware Technical Program Manager, Infrastructure Partner Operations to lead operational delivery across OpenAI’s third-party infrastructure partners, including major cloud service providers and strategic compute vendors. In this role, you will serve as the primary operational program manager for external infrastructure partners, driving accountability for service delivery, operational readiness, incident management, performance reporting, and continuous operational improvement. You will work closely with partner engineering and operations teams while coordinating internally across Hardware Engineering, Infrastructure Operations, Capacity Planning, Networking, Supply Chain, Deployment, Reliability Engineering, and executive leadership. Success in this role requires someone who understands how hyperscale infrastructure organizations operate, can establish strong operational governance with external partners, and is comfortable driving complex technical programs without direct ownership of the underlying infrastructure. Key Responsibilities Own operational engagement with third-party infrastructure providers, ensuring consistent execution against operational commitments, service-level agreements (SLAs), and performance expectations. Develop operationa

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