Founding Software Engineer, Physical Engineering

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 347,000 - 445,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical insurance

Generous PTO

Learning stipend

Job summary

OpenAI, Inc. is seeking a Founding Full Stack Software Engineer for the Physical Engineering team in San Francisco. You will define and build the product foundations across frontend experiences, backend services, and integrations to bring AI into engineering workflows.

You’ll own projects from discovery to production, collaborating with engineers and design partners to deliver reliable, intuitive tools for CAD/CAE, simulation, and design software.

Qualifications

• Experience building full-stack software across frontend and backend.
• Experience designing user interfaces for complex engineering tools.
• Ability to translate customer needs into product and technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship full-stack AI products for mechanical/electrical engineering tasks.
• Own projects from discovery through production deployment and iteration.
• Create intuitive interfaces that help users inspect and refine outputs.
• Develop backend services, APIs, plugins, and integrations with engineering software.
• Work with customers to understand constraints and turn needs into usable products.
• Partner with research and design teams to bring AI capabilities into workflows.

Skills

Frontend & Backend Development

APIs & Integrations

User experience design

Customer collaboration

Tools

APIs

Plugins

Job description

Founding Software Engineer, Physical Engineering | OpenAI

Founding Software Engineer, Physical Engineering

Applied AI Engineering - San Francisco

About the Team

The Physical Engineering team sits within OpenAI’s Enterprise Verticals organization. We’re exploring how frontier AI can help people design, simulate, and build better physical products—shortening development cycles, improving product performance, and expanding what engineering teams can accomplish.

Our initial focus is on mechanical and electrical engineering. We’re building experiences within ChatGPT and integrations with engineering software to help engineers move from early concepts through design, simulation, and preparation for production.

We operate as a small founding team within OpenAI, working directly with customers and closely with research, design, and forward deployed engineers. We learn by building, putting products in users’ hands, and using their feedback to guide our next steps.

About the Role

As a Founding Full Stack Software Engineer, you’ll help define and build the product and technical foundations of this new vertical. You’ll work across frontend experiences, backend services, and integrations to bring AI into complex engineering workflows.

You’ll combine strong software engineering fundamentals with product judgment and an eye for intuitive user experiences. Working directly with engineers and design partners, you’ll identify valuable problems, prototype solutions, and develop them into reliable products.

We’re particularly interested in engineers who have built CAD, CAE, simulation, or other engineering design software. You should be comfortable owning work independently, making decisions with incomplete information, and moving between product details and system architecture.

This is an opportunity to shape a new product area from its earliest stages, with significant influence over what we build, how it works, and the team we become.

In this role, you will:

• Build and ship full-stack AI products that help mechanical and electrical engineers work through design and simulation tasks.

• Own projects from customer discovery and prototyping through production deployment and iteration.

• Create intuitive interfaces that help users understand, inspect, and refine complex engineering outputs.

• Develop backend services, APIs, plugins, and integrations that connect OpenAI models with engineering software.

• Work directly with customers to understand engineering constraints, identify valuable applications, and translate specific needs into broadly useful products.

• Partner with research, design, platform, and forward deployed engineering teams to bring emerging AI capabilities into practical workflows.

• Evaluate quality and reliability, using customer feedback and product evidence to understand whether we’re improving how engineers work.

• Help establish the technical foundations and engineering practices of a growing team.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have independently built and shipped substantial software products, with ownership across frontend and backend systems.

• Bring strong product instincts and UI judgment, especially for tools that make complex work easier to understand and perform.

• Enjoy working directly with users and translating their needs into thoughtful product and technical decisions.

• Can turn an ambiguous opportunity into a clear starting point and a working product.

• Move quickly, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and stay accountable for quality after launch.

• Learn unfamiliar tools and domains quickly and communicate clearly across disciplines.

• Are excited about applying frontier AI to the design and development of physical products.

Particularly relevant experience

• Building CAD, CAE, simulation, electrical design, or related professional software.

• Developing interactive tools for visual, spatial, or technically complex workflows.

• Connecting engineering tools through APIs, plugins, or extensions.

• Building AI-powered applications and evaluating their usefulness and reliability.

• Taking a product from concept to production as a founder or early engineer.

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 Aff…

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 rel…

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form . 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 .

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy

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.

Compensation

$347K – $445K + Offers Equity

The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non-exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts

• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)

• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match

• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)

• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees

• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)

• Mental health and wellness support

• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage

• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth

• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible

• Relocation support for eligible employees

• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.

This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.