Mechanical Design Engineer, Motor Design & Prototyping

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 Design Engineer to lead the development of motor mechanical designs and prototype hardware for advanced robotic systems. You will own stator and rotor mechanical development from early concepts and detailed design through hands-on builds and prototype validation, partnering closely with electromagnetic, electrical, test, and manufacturing teams.

This role focuses on the design, integration, and validation of motor components and prototype processes, including laminations, stack assemblies, bobbins, winding interfaces, and fixtures. You will help drive motor development from initial design through repeatable low-volume builds while establishing the tooling, work instructions, and validation practices needed for future robotic platforms.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week.

In this role, you will

• Own stator and rotor mechanical designs and released CAD and drawings, including geometry, interfaces, fits, tolerances, retention, assembly access, and mechanical validation.

• Develop laminations, stack assembly methods, bobbins, and winding interfaces that control alignment, insulation, conductor placement, and end-turn packaging.

• Design, fabricate, and debug fixtures for winding, stacking, assembly, alignment, and inspection.

• Build and troubleshoot prototypes. Use measurements, defects, rework, and assembly effort to improve designs and processes.

• Establish low-volume prototype production with equipment, build sequences, work instructions, revision control, traceability, and acceptance checks that let technicians reproduce successful builds.

• Test new manufacturing methods and winding approaches, balancing performance, repeatability, and practical implementation.

• Work with electromagnetic, electrical, manufacturing, and test engineers to resolve tradeoffs between motor performance, packaging, buildability, and validation.

You might thrive in this role if you

• Move comfortably between CAD, the shop, measurements, and hands-on builds, and take ownership of the physical result.

• Understand how tolerances, insulation, tool access, and assembly sequence affect whether a motor can be built and used reliably.

• Diagnose failed builds through evidence and focused experiments, then carry the fix into the next iteration.

• Build useful processes while designs evolve, and document them so others can reproduce the result.

• Communicate assumptions and tradeoffs clearly and resolve coupled problems across disciplines.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience designing and building motors, actuators, or other precision electromechanical assemblies.

• Experience with lamination stacks, bobbins, winding, insulation interfaces, or small-component assembly.

• Proficiency in 3D CAD, manufacturing drawings, tolerance analysis, and fixture design, with hands-on metrology and inspection of critical mechanical interfaces.

• Machining, additive manufacturing, bonding, or other prototype manufacturing processes.

• Experience turning an initial build into a repeatable low-volume process.

• Interest in using AI to reduce repetitive design and prototype work, with careful engineering review.

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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