Robotics Lab Manager & Technician

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 the Robotics Lab Manager & Technician, you will run the beating heart of our prototyping environment. You’ll build mechanical assemblies, wire up harnesses, bring up subsystems, and help debug early-stage robots—turning ideas into working physical systems. Partnering closely with mechanical, electrical, and software engineers, your work will shape how quickly the team can learn, iterate, and push the boundaries of what our robots can do.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 5 days a week.

In this role you will:

• Lead the robotics hardware prototyping lab:

• Manage, maintain, and use lab equipment

• Manage prototype part inventory

• Develop and implement processes for lab work tracking and execution

• Manage small-volume builds and rework campaigns across robotic systems and components

• Build, debug, and modify robotics assemblies, including those with structural parts, gearing and actuators

• Build complex assemblies combining sensors, structural elements and power elements

• Build, modify, and rework electrical wire harnesses, complex PCB assemblies, including soldering rework

• Operate in-house and off-the-shelf software tools for interacting with equipment and prototype parts

• Coordinate with external vendors for maintaining lab inventory and support builds

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 6+ years of hands-on experience with electromechanical or robotic systems and enjoy rolling up your sleeves to build, test, and debug.

• Are skilled with tools such as multimeters, soldering irons, hand tools, and basic test equipment.

• Can interpret schematics, wiring diagrams, and mechanical drawings with confidence.

• Are comfortable owning experiments end-to-end—from setup, execution, and data capture

• Maintain a high bar for craftsmanship, organization, and lab discipline.

• Communicate clearly with cross-functional engineering teams and collaborate effectively in fast-paced environments.

• Have familiarity with IPC electronics rework standards and are comfortable reworking complex PCB assemblies and wire harnesses

• Are comfortable with the Linux command line

• Hold a degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related field, or possess equivalent practical experience.

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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