Mechanical Product Engineer, Robotics

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 physical constraints of physical robotic platforms.

About the Role

As a Hardware Engineer on the Robotics team, you will help shape the next generation of embodied AI. You’ll be involved in evaluating and refining new physical configurations - integrating novel sensors, actuators, and computational elements to bring our advanced models into the real world. This role offers the chance to influence how our AI scales beyond simulation, ensuring that each design, test, and iteration moves us closer to truly adaptive, versatile robotic systems.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person 4 days a week.

You might thrive in this role if you

• Have at least 8 years of consumer or industrial electronics experience, including at least 2 years of experience designing robotics hardware components and systems.

• Direct hands-on experience in mechanism design, with a focus on design in actuators, motors, gearing and limb design. 

• Bachelor’s or Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Product Design, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Experienced in Design for Manufacturability (DFM), Design for Assembly (DFA), statistical tolerance analysis techniques, CTF dimensioning, and geometric tolerancing

• Strong understanding of manufacturing processes, materials science, and tolerance analysis.

• Excellent 3D CAD experience in a leading design tool, including basic strength analysis.

• Strong technical communication skills with peer engineers, software engineers and XFN partners.

Additional, preferred qualifications

• Experience with thermal cooling solutions for hardware and silicon, or integrating sensors.

• Experience designing mechanical systems intended for high volume (1M+)

• Experience problem-solving on assembly lines and directing CM teams in all design phases.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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