About the job
About Our Team
At OpenAI, our Robotics team is pioneering the pathway to general-purpose robotics, striving towards AGI-level intelligence within dynamic, real-world environments. We work at the intersection of cutting-edge hardware and innovative software, exploring a diverse array of robotic form factors. Our mission is to seamlessly integrate high-level AI capabilities with the practical constraints of real-world systems to enhance human experiences.
About the Role
As a Firmware Engineer on our Robotics team, you will play a pivotal role in realizing the next generation of embodied AI by crafting low-level firmware for our robotic systems. Joining us at a crucial stage in our firmware development, you will collaborate with electrical, mechanical, and control systems engineers to activate new boards, integrate state-of-the-art sensors, and establish foundational infrastructure for our distributed robotic systems.
This role is both hands-on and focused on bare-metal development. You will engage with datasheets and reference manuals, develop startup code and peripheral drivers, and troubleshoot hardware-firmware interactions during board bring-up and deployment. Your contributions will encompass everything from straightforward single-purpose sensing devices to intricate, safety-critical subsystems, prioritizing correctness, performance, and scalability.
By collaborating across disciplines, you will ensure alignment between firmware, hardware, and system-level assumptions, facilitating swift design iterations and testing. This position presents a unique opportunity to influence the early firmware architecture of advanced robotic systems operating in real-world scenarios.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA, requiring in-person attendance four days per week.
You may excel in this position if you:
Possess experience in firmware development for microcontrollers and have a passion for working closely with hardware.
Are comfortable writing bare-metal firmware and are keen to deepen your knowledge of startup code, peripheral drivers, low-level system initialization, and bootloaders.
Regularly engage with datasheets, reference manuals, and schematics to comprehend new hardware functionalities.
Have participated in board bring-up, lab debugging, or early hardware validation processes.
Possess a curiosity about system failures and enjoy troubleshooting hardware-firmware interactions.

