Firmware Engineer, Robotics

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:

• Have experience developing firmware for microcontrollers and enjoy working close to the hardware.

• Are comfortable writing bare-metal firmware, or are eager to deepen your understanding of startup code, peripheral drivers, low-level system initialization, and bootloaders.

• Regularly read datasheets, reference manuals, and schematics to understand how new hardware works.

• Have participated in board bring-up, lab debugging, or early hardware validation.

• Are curious about how systems fail and enjoy debugging hardware-firmware interactions using real measurement tools.

• Are comfortable developing in a test-driven environment as well as building testbenches or simple tooling to validate hardware and system behavior.

• Care about writing correct, robust firmware and improving your technical judgment through hands-on experience.

Additional, preferred qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.

• Experience with common embedded communication protocols (e.g., SPI, I²C, UART, CAN, Ethernet, BiSS).

• Experience writing C++, or Rust for microcontrollers, especially in resource-constrained or bare-metal environments.

• Familiarity with hardware debugging tools such as JTAG/SWD, logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, or similar lab equipment.

• Experience with robotics, sensing systems, data acquisition, or other hardware-centric products.

• 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 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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