---
title: 'Mechanical Engineer, Dynamometer and Actuator Testing Infrastructure at OpenAI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-engineer-dynamometer-and-actuator-testing-infrastructure-openai-san-g1w30h3ym6g2'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-05'
---

# Mechanical Engineer, Dynamometer and Actuator Testing Infrastructure at OpenAI

- **Company:** [OpenAI](https://feeny.ai/companies/openai)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $225k–$318k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-09-10
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/2b87bb06-ba33-4cab-b950-0df12ca85dcf

## 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 a Mechanical Engineer to design, build, and own the mechanical side of our robotic actuator dynamometer and test infrastructure. You will create the test stands, couplings, fixtures, load paths, guarding, and serviceable lab hardware that enable rigorous characterization of robotic actuators. This role combines precision mechanical design with hands-on lab work. You will take robotic actuator test infrastructure from requirements and analysis through CAD, fabrication, assembly, commissioning, and iteration, partnering closely with electrical and software engineers to deliver safe, flexible, high-uptime test cells.

In this role, you will

- Own the mechanical architecture of dynamometer and actuator test cells, including frames, bases, load paths, alignment, guarding, and serviceability.
- Design dynamometer structures, robotic actuator fixtures, load-motor mounts, couplings, shafts, bearings, adapters, and torque-reaction hardware.
- Translate robotic actuator test requirements into robust mechanical systems for torque, speed, thermal, durability, backdrive, efficiency, and failure testing.
- Perform first-principles analysis and simulation for stiffness, strength, fatigue, vibration, thermal growth, critical speed, and safety factors.
- Create precise, repeatable alignment strategies that protect test articles, load machines, sensors, and couplings.
- Design modular fixturing that supports rapid changeover across actuator and motor variants without compromising measurement quality.
- Work closely with electrical engineers on cable routing, enclosures, cooling, sensor packaging, and test-cell safety interfaces.
- Work closely with software and controls engineers to define mechanical limits, safe operating envelopes, and automated-test constraints.
- Build, assemble, debug, and improve test stands in the lab, using measurement and fabrication tools directly.
- Develop guarding, containment, pinch-point mitigation, hard stops, and other mechanical safety systems for high-energy rotating equipment.
- Manage fabrication partners and vendors for machined parts, weldments, bearings, couplings, sensors, and test-stand components.
- Establish drawings, tolerance stacks, assembly procedures, inspection plans, and preventive-maintenance practices.
- Use test observations and failure analysis to continuously improve durability, usability, uptime, and measurement fidelity.

You might thrive in this role if you

- Have strong intuition for load paths, stiffness, alignment, rotating machinery, and the practical behavior of real hardware.
- Enjoy designing fixtures and structures that are precise, robust, safe, and easy for others to use.
- Are highly hands-on and comfortable assembling, aligning, instrumenting, and debugging test equipment.
- Can move fluidly between first-principles analysis, CAD, vendor collaboration, and lab iteration.
- Care about details such as tolerances, runout, resonance, thermal growth, guarding, and serviceability.
- Are comfortable working in fast-moving environments with evolving test needs and aggressive technical goals.
- Take ownership of the full test-stand lifecycle, from concept through reliable daily operation.
- Communicate clearly across mechanical, electrical, controls, software, safety, and operations teams.
- Are motivated by building infrastructure that reveals how advanced robotic actuators really perform.
- Are excited to build mechanical test infrastructure that accelerates robotic actuator development.

## Preferred qualifications

- Preferred qualifications
- Bachelor’s or graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a related field.
- Experience designing mechanical systems for robotic actuator dynamometers, robotics, automation, rotating machinery, aerospace, automotive, or similar high-performance hardware.
- Strong understanding of structures, load paths, shafts, bearings, couplings, fasteners, tolerances, alignment, and vibration.
- Experience designing fixtures, test stands, frames, guarding, and precision mechanical interfaces.
- Proficiency with CAD and drawing release workflows; NX, SolidWorks, Creo, or equivalent experience is welcome.
- Experience with structural, thermal, fatigue, or modal analysis and applying results to practical hardware decisions.
- Hands-on experience with assembly, machining, metrology, alignment, and troubleshooting in a lab or prototype environment.
- Familiarity with mechanical safety for rotating equipment, containment, interlocks, and safe operating envelopes.

## 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. [OpenAI Homepage](https://openai.com/)

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