Product Manufacturing & Quality Engineer

About the Team

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. Building on efforts like Jalapeño, the team is developing future generations of AI-native silicon and tightly integrated systems to power the next generation of frontier models. By co-designing chips, systems, tools, and methodologies, the team helps deliver faster, more efficient, and production-ready hardware for OpenAI’s supercomputing platform.

About the Role

We’re looking for a product manufacturing & quality engineer, who will be responsible for driving technical initiatives related to the manufacturing, quality and reliability of our AI supercomputer hardware systems to ensure product success from concept to launch and through mass production. You’ll have the opportunity to coordinate with functional SMEs and work with a wide range of stakeholders, from design engineering and operations teams, TPMs, external industry vendors and partners to ensure that all products are developed and delivered on time and to the highest quality standards.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees

In this role, you will:

• Own the integrated manufacturing and quality readiness for a product across L6, L10, and L11, with clear gates, milestones, deliverables, owners, and closure criteria.

• Lead readiness of process flows, tooling, fixtures, assembly operations, test interfaces, and production controls. Review and contribute to work instructions.

• Translate product requirements into qualification plans, process controls, test requirements and acceptance criteria with design engineering and Area SMEs

• Coordinate and drive execution of product and process qualification, reliability testing, and validation with the relevant SMEs. Maintain traceable evidence that assigned products and processes meet agreed performance, reliability, and compliance requirements.

• Own the supplier and line scorecard. Using yield, defect tracking, process capability, and reliability data to assess process health, identify trends and escapes, prioritize improvements, and verify their effectiveness.

• Lead containment, failure analysis, root cause investigation, and corrective actions for issues affecting the program during development, production, and deployment. Drive actions to closure with evidence that fixes are effective and sustained.

• Work on-site with Area SMEs at supplier and sub-supplier locations to assess line readiness and process execution, troubleshoot issues, and verify that agreed controls and corrective actions are implemented.

• Lead JDM/CM manufacturing and quality audits and performance reviews for the program, and drive readiness, process, and control gaps to closure.

• Assess the manufacturing and quality impact of design, process, source, and site changes. Coordinate validation and control updates with the responsible engineering and sourcing owners.

• Provide evidence-based release recommendations using readiness gate status, qualification and control evidence, containment status, and remaining risks and actions. Make any unmet criteria clear to the responsible approval owners.

• Manage multiple projects, track progress against milestones, communicate priorities and risks across functions, and coordinate risk mitigation to meet schedules and quality standards.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have a track record of owning both manufacturing and quality outcomes for complex hardware from new product introduction through production ramp and sustaining operations.

• Are hands-on, detail-oriented, and comfortable taking deep ownership of an assigned product, source, or site while coordinating specialists across disciplines.

• Understand high-performance computing hardware and the manufacturing and quality risks that carry across component, system, and rack integration, including L6, L10, and L11.

• Partner closely with design engineering and subject matter experts to assess changes, define validation needs, and integrate technical decisions while respecting design and commercial ownership.

• Have experience building integrated readiness plans, managing qualification gates and dependencies, and using technical evidence to make clear release recommendations.

• Have significant experience working with multinational JDM/CM partners on manufacturing readiness, process controls, yield improvement, quality, reliability, and issue closure.

• Are familiar with mechanical and electrical Design for Quality (DFQ), Excellence (DFX), Manufacturability (DFM), Assembly (DFA), Test (DFT), and Reliability (DFR), and can apply them with the relevant specialists.

• Have experience leading structured problem solving and root cause analysis using methods such as 8D, 5 Whys, and fishbone analysis, including validation of corrective-action effectiveness.

• Use statistical methods and manufacturing and quality data to understand yield, defects, process capability, and reliability, and communicate findings through clear supplier and line scorecards.

• Have experience qualifying processes or sources, evaluating technical equivalency, and managing risks across suppliers, sites, and product or process interfaces.

• Are comfortable with ambiguity and changing conditions, and can make clear decisions, document risks, and escalate issues while maintaining ownership through closure.

To comply with U.S. export control laws and regulations, candidates for this role may need to meet certain legal status requirements as provided in those laws and regulations.

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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We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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