Simulation Realism Engineer

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 hiring a Simulation Realism Engineer to drive our effort to make simulation quantitatively real for robotics research and product development. This role owns the strategy, tooling and operational practice that close sim→real gaps across physics, sensors and rendering. You will work cross-functionally with research, software, hardware and ops to discover the highest-impact realism gaps, define measurable realism metrics, and deliver engineering solutions — from tuning engine parameters and asset standards to integrating third-party engines and operating sims at scale. This is a hands-on engineering role that blends scientific rigor (measurement & validation) with pragmatic systems work (tooling, cloud ops, and CI/HIL pipelines).

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. This role will require 4 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Define and operationalize realism metrics & protocols. Design experiments and automated tests to find specific areas of non-realism, quantify gaps, and track regressions over time.

• Fine-tune engine parameters (contacts, friction, mass/density, solver settings) and object models so simulated dynamics match measured reality.

• Evaluate, integrate, and — where necessary — extend 3rd-party physics, rendering, and sensor simulation engines (e.g., Isaac, PhysX, MuJoCo, video renderers or sensor sim frameworks). Lead vendor POCs and benchmark features to influence roadmaps.

• Create standards, guidelines, and interactive tools for authoring and validating asset physical/visual properties; implement semi- or fully-automated pipelines to tune and optimize assets for target engines.

• Solve technical issues for running engines in the cloud (OS, drivers, GPU), parallelize simulations (batching many runs per engine instance), and harden real-world-facing pipelines so sims can run reliably at scale.

• Own validation campaigns (teleop, HIL regression suites, metric computation) and partner with research to close the loop between simulation improvements and downstream model performance.

• Document and scale best practices. Produce ergonomic templates, docs, and standards so dozens of engineers and researchers can author realistic tasks and assets quickly.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have a strong mathematical & physics background — rigid/soft-body dynamics, contact mechanics, or FEA — and are comfortable reasoning about solvers and numerical stability.

• Have hands-on experience with at least one or two production physics engines and sensor/render stacks (MuJoCo, PhysX, Isaac Sim, Newton, GPU renderers, or equivalent), and know how to measure/interpret their failure modes.

• Enjoy plumbing every layer of the sim stack: CAD/asset import, collision/visual mesh tradeoffs, contact tuning, real-time loading, and rendering pipelines.

• Have led projects that bridge sim and robotics, such as teleoperation data collection, hardware-in-the-loop regression tests, or digital twin efforts.

• Experienced building robust tools and processes — CI for sims, asset validation pipelines, or distributed GPU workloads — and care about documentation and ergonomics that let others be productive.

• Can collaborate broadly: you want to work directly with researchers to design experiments, with SWE/RE to ship tooling, and with vendors to run benchmarks and influence product roadmaps.

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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