--- title: 'Electrical Engineer, PCBA Test Infrastructure, Robotics at OpenAI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-pcba-test-infrastructure-robotics-openai-san-francisco-7jx707nncfe0' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-05' --- # Electrical Engineer, PCBA Test Infrastructure, Robotics at OpenAI - **Company:** [OpenAI](https://feeny.ai/companies/openai) - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $318k–$485k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-22 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/83939922-2a95-4cc0-b8ff-e1b15ed5254b ## Job description ## 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 We are seeking an Electrical Engineer for a senior individual-contributor role leading printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) test infrastructure for advanced robotic systems. You will independently turn evolving requirements into working test stations, make technical tradeoffs, and own delivery from architecture and circuit design through validation, deployment, and reliable operation. This role combines development-lab work with deployment at contract manufacturers. You will develop electrical test systems for board bring-up, programming, functional test, and characterization, partnering with mechanical, firmware, software, manufacturing, and reliability teams to carry validated stations from prototypes into repeat builds. This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week. Travel to contract-manufacturer sites is part of the role, with timing based on build and deployment needs. In this role, you will: - Own PCBA test-station architecture, including device-under-test interfaces, programmable power, electronic loads, signal routing, instrumentation, and protection. - Translate board requirements and likely failure modes into test coverage, measurement methods, and pass/fail criteria. Partner with board designers on design for test, test-point access, programming interfaces, and diagnostics. - Design and bring up fixture interface boards, switching circuits, harnesses, and connectors. Release schematics, PCB layouts, wiring diagrams, bills of materials, and interface definitions. - Integrate oscilloscopes, meters, power supplies, loads, and data acquisition hardware; validate calibration, timing, accuracy, and repeatability across stations and board revisions. - Develop and debug programming and communications interfaces such as JTAG/SWD, UART, SPI, I²C, CAN, and Ethernet as required by the board. Diagnose power, signal-integrity, grounding, and contact problems. - Design and validate current limiting, power sequencing, ESD protection, interlocks, and fault recovery appropriate to the hardware under test. - Partner with mechanical engineers on probe access, connector mating, board support, cooling, and serviceability. Work with firmware and software partners to define interfaces and integrate test stations with shared software. - Write, debug, and maintain test code for instrument control, board programming, automated sequences, diagnostics, and result logging. Collaborate with software partners on reusable frameworks, code reviews, and reliable releases. - Establish station commissioning, calibration, maintenance, and configuration control. Track board identity and revision, firmware version, test limits, and station configuration with each result. - Use reference boards, independent measurements, and deliberate fault checks to distinguish board failures from fixture or software errors. Improve test coverage, false-failure rate, cycle time, and station uptime. - Own test-station deployment and acceptance at contract manufacturers, including station correlation, build support, operator training, and troubleshooting. Release configurations and documentation that keep lab and factory results consistent. You might thrive in this role if you: - Have strong intuition for analog and digital circuits, power delivery, electronics debugging, and reliable measurement. - Move comfortably from architecture and circuit design to soldering, probing, scripting, and troubleshooting in the lab. - Care about grounding, shielding, contact quality, calibration, and evidence that a test detects the faults it is intended to find. - Take ownership from prototype through reliable daily operation, balancing rapid iteration with clear documentation and maintainable test systems. Required qualifications - Demonstrated ability to independently deliver significant electronics test-system projects from ambiguous requirements through working hardware, validation, and sustained use. - Hands-on capability in circuit and fixture-interface design, schematic interpretation, board bring-up, power delivery, signal switching, and instrument integration. - Ability to independently debug PCBAs and test hardware using oscilloscopes, meters, logic analyzers, and systematic root-cause investigation. - Ability to write, debug, and maintain code that interfaces with real hardware in Python or a comparable language, including instrument control, sequencing, error handling, and structured result logging. - Practical understanding of grounding, signal integrity, calibration, measurement uncertainty, ESD controls, power sequencing, and electrical protection. - Ability to release clear test and hardware documentation, coordinate across engineering disciplines, and support hands-on deployment and troubleshooting at contract manufacturers. ## Preferred qualifications - Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. - Prior PCBA functional-test or automated-test-equipment experience, including design for test, test coverage, fixture correlation, and new-product builds at contract manufacturers. - Experience with embedded programming, diagnostic firmware, and board interfaces such as JTAG/SWD, UART, SPI, I²C, CAN, or Ethernet. - Experience with PCB design tools, shared test-automation frameworks, production data systems, or robotics hardware. What success looks like - Commission a reusable PCBA test station with documented coverage, acceptance criteria, and traceable results; deploy and validate a reproducible configuration at a contract manufacturer. - Demonstrate measurement repeatability and intended fault detection using reference boards, independent measurements, and known-fault cases. Track false failures, cycle time, and uptime against agreed improvement targets. - Release hardware documentation, versioned test code, commissioning checks, and troubleshooting procedures that enable lab and contract-manufacturer teams to reproduce, operate, and maintain the station ## 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](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf). 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. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through [this form](https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA). No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this [link](https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241). [OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf) At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology. ## About OpenAI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company with a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. - **Entity Type**: Private – structured as a nonprofit parent (OpenAI Foundation) governing a for-profit public benefit corporation (OpenAI Group). The company has confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC, signaling a potential future IPO. - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA - **Founded**: 2015 - **Founders**: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Wojciech Zaremba, and others ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Artificial intelligence research and deployment - **Target customers**: B2B (enterprises via API and platform), B2C (ChatGPT users), and developers (API, open-source models) - **Mission**: To ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI systems that are generally smarter than humans – benefits all of humanity. ## Products & Services - **[ChatGPT](https://openai.com/chatgpt)**: Conversational AI assistant available via web and mobile, used by consumers and integrated into enterprise workflows. - **[GPT-4 API](https://openai.com/product)**: Large language model accessed via API for developers to build AI-powered applications (text generation, summarization, code assistance, etc.). - **[DALL-E](https://openai.com/dall-e-3)**: Image generation model that creates images from natural language descriptions. - **[Whisper](https://openai.com/research/whisper)**: Open-source speech recognition system. - **[OpenAI Agents](https://openai.com/)**: Emerging product category focused on autonomous AI agents that can perform tasks on behalf of users (announced June 2026). ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed in the provided sources. Widely reported in the press at ~$300 billion as of early 2026 (post-funding round), but this figure is not confirmed by OpenAI’s official materials. - **Key Metric**: Total funding exceeds $13 billion from Microsoft and other investors. The company has also confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC (see [openai.com](https://openai.com/) – “Confidential submission of draft S-1”). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Microsoft (strategic partner and largest investor), with additional participation from Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others. - **Growth Signals**: Active hiring with 721 open roles posted; expansion into agent-based products; confidential IPO filing; continued deployment of frontier models. ## Competitive Advantages - **First-mover & brand recognition**: ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in history, establishing OpenAI as the household name in generative AI. - **Research leadership**: Consistently publishes cutting-edge research (GPT-4, DALL-E 3, Whisper, etc.) and attracts top AI talent. - **Compute & infrastructure**: Exclusive partnership with Microsoft provides massive cloud computing resources (Azure) for training and inference. - **Unique governance structure**: The nonprofit parent ensures mission alignment (AGI benefiting humanity) while the for-profit arm can raise capital and scale products. ## Strategic Focus - **Safe AGI development**: Continued emphasis on safety research, alignment, and responsible deployment (e.g., safety systems, model provenance). - **Enterprise expansion**: Growing ChatGPT Enterprise and API offerings for businesses. - **Agentic AI**: Building autonomous agents that can “transform work” (announced June 2026). - **IPO preparation**: Confidential S-1 filing indicates intent to go public, which will require increased financial transparency and governance maturity. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & values**: OpenAI’s stated values include “Humanity first,” “Act with humility,” “Feel the AGI,” and “Ship joy.” Operating principles emphasize agency, creativity, rapid iteration, and intense focus. - **Benefits**: Competitive health insurance, mental healthcare support, 24-week paid birth-parent leave (plus 20 weeks for other parents), generous PTO, annual learning & development stipend, daily meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), and a domestic conference budget. - **Work environment**: Hybrid/office-based (San Francisco headquarters). The company offers a residency program for researchers and engineers transitioning into AI. - **Impact**: Employees work directly on frontier AI models that shape the industry and society. The mission-driven nature attracts talent passionate about AGI’s societal implications. ## Sources 1. [OpenAI About Page](https://openai.com/about/) 2. [OpenAI Careers Page](https://openai.com/careers/) 3. [OpenAI Job Search](https://openai.com/careers/search) 4. 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