Job Posting
Firmware Engineer, Robotics
Location
San Francisco
Employment Type
Full time
Location Type
On-site
Department
Research
Compensation
- $185K – $268K • Offers Equity
The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non-exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.
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Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
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Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
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401(k) retirement plan with employer match
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Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
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Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
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13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
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Mental health and wellness support
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Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
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Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
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Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
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Relocation support for eligible employees
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Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.
More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.
This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.
About the Team
Our Robotics team is focused on unlocking general-purpose robotics and advancing toward AGI-level intelligence in dynamic, real-world environments. Working across the full model and systems 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 real-world systems to improve people’s lives.
About the Role
As a Firmware Engineer on the Robotics team, you will help enable the next generation of embodied AI by developing low-level firmware that drives our robotic systems. You will join at an early phase of our firmware development, working alongside electrical, mechanical, and control systems engineers to bring up new boards, integrate novel sensors, and build foundational infrastructure for the distributed system that drives our robots.
This role is hands-on and bare-metal focused. You will read datasheets and reference manuals, write startup code and peripheral drivers, and debug hardware–firmware interactions during board bring-up and deployment. Your work will span everything from simple single-purpose sensing devices to more complex, safety- and reliability-critical subsystems, with an emphasis on correctness, performance, and scalability.
By working closely across disciplines, you will help ensure that firmware, hardware, and system-level assumptions align, and that new designs can be brought up, tested, and iterated on quickly. This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the early firmware architecture for advanced robotic systems operating in real-world environments.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week.
You might thrive in this role if you:
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Have experience developing firmware for microcontrollers and enjoy working close to the hardware.
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Are comfortable writing bare-metal firmware, or are eager to deepen your understanding of startup code, peripheral drivers, low-level system initialization, and bootloaders.
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Regularly read datasheets, reference manuals, and schematics to understand how new hardware works.
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Have participated in board bring-up, lab debugging, or early hardware validation.
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Are curious about how systems fail and enjoy debugging hardware-firmware interactions using real measurement tools.
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Are comfortable developing in a test-driven environment as well as building testbenches or simple tooling to validate hardware and system behavior.
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Care about writing correct, robust firmware and improving your technical judgment through hands-on experience.
Additional, preferred qualifications:
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A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
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Experience with common embedded communication protocols (e.g., SPI, I²C, UART, CAN, Ethernet, BiSS).
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Experience writing C++, or Rust for microcontrollers, especially in resource-constrained or bare-metal environments.
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Familiarity with hardware debugging tools such as JTAG/SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, or similar lab equipment.
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Experience with robotics, sensing systems, data acquisition, or other hardware-centric products.
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Clear written and verbal communication skills, especially when collaborating with hardware and systems engineers.
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
