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OpenAI is standing up a hardware-and-testing function to put its models into physical robots, meaning the lab is moving from software-only work toward owning the mechanical systems its AI runs on.
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
As a Test Engineer on the Robotics team, you will help shape the next generation of embodied AI. You’ll design and run rigorous, exploratory and requirements-driven tests—building custom test equipment, analyzing results, and translating findings into actionable insights that drive design breakthroughs and mitigate risks across hardware and software. This role offers the opportunity to directly influence how our AI scales beyond simulation, ensuring that every design, test, and iteration brings us closer to truly adaptive, versatile robotic systems.
In this role, you will:
Design and build custom test benches to evaluate system performance under realistic operating conditions; proficient in CAD and familiar with GD&T.
Analyze and interpret test data to identify trends, anomalies, and root causes.
Develop and maintain comprehensive test plans that validate mechanical performance against product requirements.
Execute validation and verification testing, capturing both quantitative and qualitative data with high fidelity.
Author clear, actionable test reports that summarize results, highlight risks, and recommend design or process changes.
Partner with engineering, product, and leadership teams to inform design iterations and strategic decisions.
Design and execute compliance and regulatory testing campaigns, informing in-house vs 3rd party testing strategy
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have strong intuition for mechanical and electromechanical systems and how they fail, degrade, or vary in real-world operation.
Enjoy hands-on lab work designing, instrumenting, operating, and debugging test equipment and robotic hardware.
Can turn evolving requirements and ambiguous failures into repeatable tests, trustworthy data, and clear engineering decisions.
Balance rigorous validation, safety, and traceability with rapid hardware iteration.
Communicate clearly across mechanical, electrical, software, controls, and manufacturing teams, and build alignment on risks and corrective actions.
Preferred Qualifications
7+ years of experience in hardware testing or validation, including at least 2 years working with robotics hardware components and systems.
Bachelor’s or graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience designing test fixtures and stands using CAD, engineering drawings, and GD&T.
Hands-on experience integrating sensors, instrumentation, and data acquisition (DAQ) systems, including calibration and measurement traceability.
Experience developing automated or hardware-in-the-loop tests using Python, C/C++, or AI coding tools for test execution, data collection, and analysis.
Experience designing reliability, accelerated life, environmental, and hardware qualification tests for robotic or electromechanical systems.
Experience supporting EVT, DVT, PVT, pilot production, or sustaining hardware validation.
Experience using root cause analysis, FMEA, or FEA to guide design improvements.
Experience executing product standards compliance certification campaigns.
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.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. 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.
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