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 an experienced SoC Architect to lead the definition and development of next-generation custom AI silicon for edge deployments. This role will be responsible for shaping the architecture of highly efficient, high-performance SoCs optimized for machine learning inference and on-device intelligence. You will work cross-functionally with internal engineering teams and external ecosystem partners to translate product requirements into scalable silicon solutions, driving execution from concept through delivery. In this role you will: Define the architecture and technical roadmap for custom SoCs targeted for edge applications. Drive system-level tradeoff analysis across compute, memory, interconnect, power, thermal, and cost constraints. Architect energy-efficient ML compute subsystems optimized for inference workloads and real-world deployment environments. Collaborate with internal hardware, software, systems, and product teams to align architecture with platform needs. Partner with external silicon vendors, IP providers, and manufacturing partners to execute development plans. Lead hardware/software co-design efforts to maximize performance per watt and end-to-end system efficiency. Guide implementation teams through microarchitecture, RTL development, validation, and bring-up phases. Operate effectively in agile development environments and help teams deliver against aggressive schedules and milestones. You might thrive in this role if: Proven exper
Jobs in United States
System Ip Rtl Design Lead in San Francisco
15 active opportunities · Updated September 2026
Showing
15 jobs
Explore current system ip rtl design lead jobs in San Francisco. Filter by work mode, employment type, experience, department, date posted and distance.
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: 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 OpenAI is developing custom silicon to power the next generation of frontier AI models. We’re looking for experienced Design Verification (DV) Engineers to ensure functional correctness and robust design for our cutting-edge ML accelerators. You will play a key role in verifying complex hardware systems—ranging from individual IP blocks to subsystems and full SoC—working closely with architecture, RTL, software, and systems teams to deliver reliable silicon at scale. In this role you will: Own the verification of one or more of: custom IP blocks, subsystems (compute, interconnect, memory, etc.), or full-chip SoC-level functionality. Define verification plans based on architecture and microarchitecture specs. Develop constrained-random, directed, and system-level testbenches using SystemVerilog/UVM or equivalent methodologies. Build and maintain stimulus generators, checkers, monitors, and scoreboards to ensure high coverage and correctness. Drive bug triage, root cause analysis, and work closely with design teams on resolution. Contribute to regression infrastructure, coverage analysis, and closure for both block- and top-level environments. You might thrive in this role if you have: BS/MS in EE/CE/CS or equivalent with 3+ years of experience in hardware verification. Proven success verifying complex IP or SoC designs in industry-standard flows Proficient in SystemVerilog, UVM, and common simulation and debug tools (e.g., VCS, Questa, Verdi). Strong knowledge
$230K – $260K/yr
Who We Are Notion is the collaborative AI workspace where teams and agents think together . We're building one place where your knowledge, projects, meetings, and AI tools live side by side, so work is faster, clearer, and less fragmented. Millions of individuals, small teams, and large companies run their work on Notion. Notinos (our employees) are customer zero in bringing this future of work to life. We care about craft, building things that last, and the belief that great work is still fundamentally human. Our goal isn’t to ship the next feature. Each and every team of Notinos is working to set the standard for how humans work together in the AI era. From building a business’s system of record to making and managing AI agents to automating away the busy work, we care deeply about giving our customers more time for their life’s work. About the Role: As an AI Product Counsel on the Product and IP Legal team, you’ll focus on advising our AI product development team as they build and ship AI functionality—covering everything from product counseling for launches to accelerating AI partnership deals. This role exists because Notion is building the AI workspace that helps every person and team get more done, with intelligence embedded across the tools they use to think, create, and collaborate. We’re bringing frontier intelligence to the “Fortune 5 million,” across an unusually broad surface area (models, workflows, features, and platform). This role is central to that effort. This role reports to our Head of Product and IP Legal and will work closely day-to-day with our Lead AI Product Counsel. This role will be based in San Francisco. We work from our offices on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (our Anchor Days) because we do our best thinking and building together in person. We’re looking for someone who’s excited to work alongside the team during those days. What You'll Achieve: Accelerate partnerships for AI product development: collaborate with cross functional st
About the Team OpenAI Consumer Devices is building the next generation of products that bring powerful AI into people’s everyday lives. Guided by OpenAI’s mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, our team combines world-class researchers, engineers, designers, and operators who care deeply about creating useful, intuitive, and responsible technology. You’ll have the opportunity to work alongside exceptional people on ambitious, zero-to-one challenges at the intersection of hardware, software, and AI. This is a chance to help define an entirely new category of products—and shape how people experience AI in the future. Our team works across systems software and product engineering to build reliable consumer devices and the platforms behind them. We develop the connectivity and networking foundations that support communication across OpenAI products and systems. About the Role As an Operating Systems Engineer focused on connectivity and networking, you will design, develop, and maintain the OS capabilities that enable reliable, secure, and efficient communication across OpenAI products and systems. Your work will span Wi-Fi and Bluetooth frameworks, IP networking, and advanced network services and policy. You’ll develop OS services, libraries, and interfaces for a broad range of connectivity needs, make design decisions across software boundaries, and carry solutions through development, integration, and production. In this role, you will: Build connectivity foundations: Design, implement, and maintain OS services, frameworks, and APIs for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and IP networking. Develop reusable network capabilities: Build connection management, network configuration and selection, service discovery, and routing capabilities. Enable secure communication: Develop network services and policies for secure communication, traffic management, and isolation across varied network environments. Resolve issues across the stack: Investigate correctness, concurrency, interoper
About the role We’re looking for an engineering manager to lead a team building software systems that detect and prevent harmful misuse of frontier AI models—before incidents occur. This is a builder’s role: you’ll lead engineers shipping production services, detection pipelines, and mitigation mechanisms that protect frontier model integrity and reduce high-severity misuse risk. While this work intersects with frontier model development, security and risk, we’re explicitly seeking someone with a software engineering foundation who is comfortable building reliable systems that can operate at billions of users scale. In this role you will: Lead a team of software engineers building detection + mitigation systems for frontier model misuse, with an emphasis on model IP protection / distillation detection and emerging risk surfaces from autonomous agents. Set the technical roadmap and execution strategy: prioritize, design, ship, iterate, measure impact. Build production systems: services, pipelines, tooling, instrumentation, and automation that scale with frontier model usage. Partner deeply with Research and Product to translate evolving model capabilities into concrete tests, signals, and mitigations that can be deployed at scale. Drive strong engineering fundamentals: architecture, reliability, monitoring, performance, and operational excellence. Hire and grow an exceptional team across backend, data systems, and applied ML engineering domains as needed. Anticipate what breaks at scale as agentic workflows become more capable. You might thrive in this role if you: Experience building systems in adversarial, fast-evolving environments Are comfortable with ambiguity and novelty Have experience adjacent to security (e.g., abuse prevention, fraud, integrity, platform defense, auth/identity, malware/spam, adversarial environments) Communicate clearly and build trust quickly with senior stakeholders—pragmatic, collaborative, and calm under scrutiny. Significant experience
About the Team OpenAI's Research Team is at the forefront of AI research, pushing the limits of what AI can achieve. Our team is dedicated to developing advanced AI systems that are powerful, safe, and beneficial for everyone. About the Role The Research IP Partnerships team is in need of Technical Program Managers (TPMs) to streamline the integration of our applied research with external strategic partners. This role is critical for synthesizing research from cross functional teams, enabling model deployment, and ensuring new technologies are effectively adopted. You will act as the connection that enables our partners to deploy the most advanced AI models. Your primary focus will be to increase our research velocity and ensure that our deployments are successful and collaborative with our partners. 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: Build and share a deep understanding of frontier AI model development Partner with internal and external teams to drive deployment of the latest OpenAI technologies Manage critical inquiries from both technical and non-technical partners Design and implement simple, scalable processes that solve complex problems Deliver high-profile pipeline and tooling projects on tight deadlines Work across research and engineering to align goals, streamline communication, and support business priorities You might thrive in this role if you: Have experience in a strategic partnerships and technical program management role Can right-size process to align stakeholders while ensuring speed of delivery (action-oriented) Are fantastic at building cross-functional relationships and having empathy for the many roles involved in deploying research Can design and build tools (via code / no-code / AI) to facilitate internal processes Are a great communicator across written, presentation, and visual forms. Are engaged and c
About the Team OpenAI is building the infrastructure foundation for the next generation of AI. The Data Center Engineering team defines the strategy, reference architectures, technical requirements, and delivery standards for the large-scale data centers that support OpenAI research, products, and infrastructure partners. As a Data Center Controls Network Engineer, you will design, validate, and scale the controls and OT network architectures that support high-density AI data centers. You will work across controls systems, OT infrastructure, telemetry, commissioning, deployment, and operations, partnering with mechanical, electrical, IT/networking, security, and external delivery teams. About the Role We are seeking a mid to senior OT Network Engineer with a strong controls systems background to lead the design and operation of resilient, secure, and scalable OT network architectures for high-density AI data centers. This role translates compute, power, cooling, and operational requirements into practical OT network designs, evaluates vendor solutions, and drives technical decisions across controls infrastructure, telemetry, commissioning, and operations. The ideal candidate has strong hands-on experience in mission-critical OT environments, including industrial networking, virtualized infrastructure, and OT network operations, with expertise in routing, switching, segmentation, firewall policy, time synchronization, monitoring, and network lifecycle support. Key Responsibilities Define controls, automation, and OT network requirements for AI data center campuses. Develop reference architectures, engineering standards, and reusable design templates. Review and develop basis-of-design and functional design documents, including OT network diagrams, IP/VLAN schemes, telemetry architectures, data flow diagrams, and commissioning requirements. Design OT and infrastructure network architectures, including physical topology, logical topology, IP addressing, subnetting, VLA
About the Team OpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Consumer Devices team is building a new generation of AI-powered products that seamlessly integrate hardware and software to create intuitive, transformative experiences. We bring together experts across embedded systems, machine learning, hardware, design, and product engineering to develop products at the intersection of AI and consumer technology. About the Role OpenAI is seeking a System Performance Engineer to profile, benchmark, and optimize performance across our embedded hardware products. In this role, you will work across operating systems, applications, camera and vision, graphics, and platform teams to define product KPIs, build performance tooling, and drive optimizations from early lab characterization through product launch and real-world usage. You will help establish the performance standards that shape the user experience of our products, ensuring they remain responsive, efficient, and reliable throughout their lifecycle. This role requires deep expertise in embedded or high-performance systems, strong operating systems fundamentals, and hands-on experience debugging under tight latency, power, and memory constraints. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of four days per week in the office and one day working remotely. Relocation assistance is available for new hires. In this role, you will: Develop system performance benchmarks, methodologies, and policies to evaluate end-to-end product behavior. Profile and analyze performance across key product use cases and workloads using custom and industry-standard profiling tools. Partner closely with engineering teams to identify bottlenecks and drive performance optimizations across the software stack. Define high-level product KPIs and establish measurement frameworks to measure launch readiness and monitor performance throughout the product lifecycle. Measure, re
About the Team OpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Consumer Devices team is building a new generation of AI-powered products that seamlessly integrate hardware and software to create intuitive, transformative experiences. We bring together experts across embedded systems, machine learning, hardware, design, and product engineering to develop products at the intersection of AI and consumer technology. About the Role OpenAI is seeking a System Power Engineer to characterize, measure, and optimize power consumption across our embedded hardware products. In this role, you will work closely with Electrical Engineering and system software teams to build power test automation, measure subsystem-level power usage, and drive improvements that directly impact battery life, thermal behavior, charging performance, and system reliability. You will help establish the methodologies and metrics used to understand and improve power efficiency across real-world product experiences, from controlled lab environments to representative day-in-the-life usage scenarios. This role requires hands-on experience with embedded hardware platforms, power instrumentation, and the analysis of power profiles and system behavior. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of four days per week in the office and one day working remotely. Relocation assistance is available for new hires. In this role, you will: Define and develop power testing automation to evaluate system behavior across a range of workloads and operating conditions. Measure subsystem-level power consumption using power breakout probes and other lab instrumentation. Develop and execute power characterization tests spanning basic workloads, complex mixed-use scenarios, and representative day-of-use experiences. Partner closely with Electrical Engineers to identify opportunities to improve system power efficiency. Collaborate with software engineering
Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid: 4 days onsite/week). Relocation assistance available. About the Team: We build foundational platform software that enables reliable, secure, and performant products. The team works across system layers and partners closely with adjacent engineering groups to deliver robust capabilities from concept through launch. About the Role: We’re seeking a System Software Engineer to design, implement, and debug core platform components and the pipelines that build and update system images. You’ll work across operating system layers, focusing on performance, security, and deep system debugging to ship production‑grade systems. In this role, you will: Design, implement, and debug system‑level components and services across kernel and user space. Configure and maintain OS platform services (init, services, networking, security policies) and related tooling. Build and operate image and update pipelines, ensuring reliability, reproducibility, and rollback safety. Instrument and analyze performance using profiling and tracing; optimize CPU, memory, I/O, and power usage. Own platform observability and reliability: logging, crash capture, watchdogs, and diagnostics. Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to define interfaces and deliver end‑to‑end features. Establish strong engineering practices: code review, CI, reproducible builds, and release management. Partner with external suppliers to support builds and deployments. You might thrive in this role if you: Have shipped production systems software on modern operating systems. Are proficient in C/C++ and a scripting language, and comfortable with OS internals (concurrency, memory management, filesystems, networking, power management). Bring strong systems debugging skills using debuggers, tracers, profilers, and logs across kernel/user‑space boundaries. Understand configuration of platform services and interfaces, and can translate requirements into stable, well‑documented APIs. Are fluent in u
About the Team OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops silicon and system-level solutions designed for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. The team is responsible for building the next generation of AI-native silicon while working closely with software and research partners to co-design hardware tightly integrated with AI models. In addition to delivering production-grade silicon for OpenAI’s supercomputing infrastructure, the team also creates custom design tools and methodologies that accelerate innovation and enable hardware optimized specifically for AI. About the Role We're looking for an Optical Interconnect System Engineer to design, qualify, and deploy scalable optical connectivity for large-scale AI infrastructure. This role spans fiber-system architecture, optical-mechanical integration, validation, reliability, deployment, and serviceability. You will work with optical, mechanical, electrical, networking, manufacturing, reliability, and data-center teams to translate system needs into practical interconnect solutions. This is a hands-on role for someone who can connect design decisions with installation, qualification, troubleshooting, and long-term operational performance. In this role, you will: Define optical interconnect architectures and requirements across hardware platforms and rack-level systems. Design high-density fiber systems for performance, density, reliability, installation, and serviceability. Lead optical-mechanical integration and cross-functional design reviews. Develop test and qualification plans for optical components, modules, switching platforms, and integrated systems. Own optical loss budgets, routing guidelines, handling requirements, and serviceability criteria. Support system bring-up, deployment, troubleshooting, failure analysis, and reliability improvement. Create reusable design guidelines, interface requirements, and qualification methods. You might thrive in this role if you have: Core experience Experience desi
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. Role summary We are seeking a Networking Operating System Firmware Engineer to help bootstrap and scale the switching layer of our AI supercomputers. In this role, you will build and maintain custom NOS images from scratch, using open source components from SONiC, SAI, FRR, and related networking stacks while working across the Linux kernel, switch ASIC SAI/SDKs, platform drivers, control-plane services, and orchestration layers. This is a software engineering role that requires a deep understanding of networking, NOS internals, switch hardware, and production systems. You will design, implement, test, and debug production NOS software across platform drivers, routing and control-plane state, ASIC programming, observability, and fleet integration. The engineer in this role should be able to work through ambiguous, open-ended technical problems and drive feature development across software, hardware, and vendor boundaries. 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 Design, develop, and maintain custom NOS images for large-scale AI fabrics, using open source components from SONiC, FRR, and related networking stacks. Integrate, build and configure Linux kernel components, device drivers, switch ASIC SDKs, and SAI layers. Bring up new switch platforms, including thermal and fan control, power monitoring, transceiver management, watchdogs, OSFP CMIS, L
About the Team The Agent Safety team works to ensure that increasingly capable AI agents act safely, exercise sound judgment, and remain aligned with user intent. Our mission is to reduce the probability of severe unintended outcomes from increasingly capable AI agents while preserving their ability to act effectively and autonomously. Our work spans three areas: Training: Create training methods, environments and data that teach agents to make better decisions in consequential situations. We turn real-world failures into training signals that prevent similar incidents, and identify precursor behaviors and mitigations to address emerging risks. Measurements: Build evaluations and production metrics that identify emerging risks and measure whether our interventions work. Oversight : Develop oversight and system mitigation mechanisms that reduce harmful actions while preserving useful agent autonomy (for example future versions of auto-review ). About the Role This role focuses on oversight and system-level mitigations that enable increasingly capable agents to operate safely and autonomously in real environments. We prioritize building oversight systems that are used in practice today, both internally and externally (see our recent work on action monitoring for codex and former code review ). We also study longer-term questions about how increasingly capable agentis systems can be supervised, constrained, and corrected. We’re looking for a safety&security minded researcher or engineer who can reason rigorously about security boundaries and agent behavior, then build and test practical mitigations. A background in AI control or security is welcome but not required. 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: Design, build, and evaluate system-level controls for agent actions like agent-based review. Plan how they fit in a broader syste
What you’ll do Execute weekly system-level exploratory testing across the scanner and supporting software; log and triage issues with clear reproduction steps. Work with engineering to debug root cause and validate fixes. Help maintain the DHF and traceability between user needs, design requirements, tests, and results. Own practical test execution logistics (fixtures, test data, environments, calibration artifacts) and keep things repeatable. Help build the continuous testing strategy: automated tests where feasible, plus structured manual and system tests. Support V&V activities, including coordination with external partners as needed. What we’re looking for Strong hands-on testing instincts for complex electromechanical systems with substantial software. Ability to write clear bug reports and communicate risk/impact. Experience building and maintaining test plans/protocols; comfort operating lab equipment and debugging across layers. Useful experience Experience testing complex systems end-to-end (automation where it pays off, plus hands-on hardware/instrumentation). Medical device or other safety-critical environments and comfort translating risk into practical test coverage.
Other cities to consider
More places hiring for this role
Get new system ip rtl design lead jobs in San Francisco, United States by email
Daily job updates · Unsubscribe anytime