OpenAI

Research

FirmwareLead,Robotics

$185–268k San Francisco, California, United States FULL TIME
Market Sentiment
HIGH DEMAND

Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Lead candidates.

The Brief

“Firmware Lead, Robotics at OpenAI. Skills: Firmware architecture, Embedded systems, Safety-critical systems, Robotics hardware. Bring up new hardware. Set execution pace for team”

What You'll Achieve.

Raise reliability bar for team; Get rough prototype working; Unlock next decision

Industry & Context.

Research
Problems you'll solve

Reasoning about risk; Diagnosability; Graceful degradation; Root-cause analysis; Troubleshooting

Eligibility Requirements

In office 5 days per week

What They're Looking For.

Must Have

Deep experience building safety-critical systems, Deep experience building high-consequence systems, Comfortable reasoning about risk, Designing for diagnosability, Designing for graceful degradation, Creating engineering practices for reliability, Unusually good at moving fast, Technical leader, Hands-on builder, Setting direction, Reviewing critical designs, Unblocking hardest problems, Writing production firmware, Extensive experience developing firmware iteratively, Led architecture and delivery for complex embedded products, Deeply fluent in low-level languages, Comfortable working close to hardware, Understand embedded systems from first principles, Instincts for defensive design, Instincts for fault containment, Instincts for validation depth, Instincts for post-deployment diagnosability, Know when to build durable system, Know when to produce fastest artifact, Communicate clearly across disciplines, Turn ambiguity into sound technical direction, Care about building trustworthy systems, Make heavy use of AI-assisted coding systems

Nice to Have

Experience with Rust in embedded environments, Experience with Embassy, Experience with async embedded Rust frameworks, Familiarity with mixed-language firmware architectures, Experience with ARM Cortex-M platforms, Experience with ARM Cortex-R platforms, Experience with RTOSes, Experience with low-power embedded designs, Experience building firmware for sensor-rich products, Experience building firmware for latency-sensitive products, Experience building firmware for tightly integrated electromechanical products

What You'll Do.

Bring up new hardware

Set execution pace for team

Lead firmware architecture

Define engineering standards

Design safety-critical mechanisms

Review safety-critical mechanisms

Build quick prototypes

Harden ideas into production systems

Partner with hardware engineers

Partner with software engineers

Partner with AI research engineers

Build bring-up processes

Build validation processes

Build release processes

Establish testing strategies

Drive root-cause analysis

Make tradeoffs across performance

Make tradeoffs across memory

Make tradeoffs across power

Make tradeoffs across schedule

Make tradeoffs across safety

Mentor firmware engineers

Shape culture of urgency

Shape culture of technical rigor

Shape culture of practical judgment

Shape culture of high-quality execution

How You'll Work.

Team & Collaboration

Cross-discipline communication; Partner with engineers

Communication Scope

Clear communication

Process & Methodology

Setting direction, Delivery

Full Job Description

About the Team We are building general-purpose robotics. In the short term, we are focused on robots to support skilled workers to build our future infrastructure. In the long term, we imagine everyone having a personal robot doing anything they need. Progress is rapid, and based on a foundation of co-design between robotics hardware and ML research. About the Role As a Firmware Lead, you will define and drive the architecture of embedded systems for next-generation hardware products. You will own foundational firmware decisions across real-time execution, device bring-up, hardware interfaces, fault handling, safety mechanisms, and production readiness. We’re looking for someone with deep experience building safety-critical or high-consequence systems, where failures can have meaningful consequences. You should be comfortable reasoning about risk, designing for diagnosability and graceful degradation, and creating engineering practices that raise the reliability bar for the entire team. You should also be unusually good at moving fast. Sometimes the right answer is a carefully reviewed architecture that will endure for years; sometimes it is getting a rough-but-useful prototype working by the end of the afternoon so the team can learn something concrete tomorrow. We value engineers who know the difference, make that call well, and can operate credibly in both modes. You will be both a technical leader and a hands-on builder: setting direction, reviewing critical designs, unblocking the hardest problems, and writing production firmware when it matters most. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. This role will be expected to be in office 5 days per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: - Rapidly bring up new hardware and set execution pace for the team. - Lead firmware architecture for embedded systems spanning boot, RTOS/runtime behavior, peripheral control, power management, communications, and field diagnostics. - Define

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