Power Generation Design Engineer — Campus-Scale & BESS

OpenAI, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 257,000 - 327,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Design Engineer, Power Generation in San Francisco to develop and integrate large-scale power-generation systems for AI infrastructure campuses. You will translate campus load, reliability, and operating requirements into practical generation architectures and design criteria for behind-the-meter and hybrid grid solutions.

This individual contributor role spans concept to commissioning, working with utilities, OEMs, EPCs, developers, and operators to deliver scalable,

Qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering experience in power generation or industrial power systems.
• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience taking generation projects from concept through detailed design, with involvement in procurement, construction support, commissioning, or performance testing.
• Strong understanding of generation technologies such as gas turbines or reciprocating engines and their supporting systems.
• Ability to evaluate studies, drawings, specifications, and proposals; identify risks; and trade off safety, reliability, cost, schedule, and maintainability.
• Experience coordinating interfaces across utilities, EPCs, developers, and operators.

Responsibilities

• Develop power-generation concepts, reference architectures, design criteria, and site-specific requirements based on campus demand, phasing, and reliability targets.
• Evaluate generation technologies and configurations including gas turbines, engines, fuel cells, BESS, microgrids, and grid-connected solutions.
• Define plant electrical and mechanical balance-of-plant requirements, protection, controls philosophy, grid paralleling, islanding, redundancy, and maintainability.
• Translate AI infrastructure load profiles and schedules into generation capacity plans, ramp strategies, and commissioning criteria.
• Lead technical diligence of OEM/EPC proposals; review calculations, one-line diagrams, layouts, and design assumptions to identify gaps and risks.
• Coordinate interfaces across utility interconnection, substations, electrical distribution, cooling, controls, fuel, emissions, water, and permitting.

Skills

Power generation

System integration

Electrical engineering

Project coordination

Vendor management

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

OpenAI is seeking a Design Engineer, Power Generation in San Francisco to develop and integrate large-scale power-generation systems for AI infrastructure campuses. You will translate campus load, reliability, and operating requirements into practical generation architectures and design criteria for behind-the-meter and hybrid grid solutions.

This individual contributor role spans concept to commissioning, working with utilities, OEMs, EPCs, developers, and operators to deliver scalable,