Senior Actuator Gear Design Engineer for Robotics

OpenAI; California (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI in San Francisco, CA, seeks an Actuator Gear Design Engineer to lead the development of custom gears and gear stages for advanced robotic systems. You will own actuator development from concept through prototype validation and system integration, partnering with mechanical, electrical, controls, firmware, and reliability teams.

This role focuses on precision gearing design, transmission elements, sensing architectures, and integration into robotic platforms, with hands-on bring-up,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Mechatronics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience designing gears systems, robotic actuators, or precision mechatronic hardware.
• Experience developing transmission elements for robotics or high-performance dynamic systems.
• Strong understanding of motors, transmissions, bearings, encoders, structural design, thermal management, and precision mechanical integration.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, design, and integration of custom robotic actuator gearing.
• Define actuator requirements and system-level trade studies around torque density, bandwidth, efficiency, and thermal performance.
• Design precision electromechanical assemblies with tolerances, alignment, load paths, sealing, and serviceability.
• Drive actuator integration into robotic systems with controls, firmware, electrical, and software teams.
• Develop and evaluate architectures with integrated sensing and encoder strategies.
• Build and validate prototypes through bring-up, debugging, characterization, and refinement.
• Develop test methodologies and evaluation infrastructure for actuator performance, reliability, and durability.
• Collaborate with manufacturing and supplier partners to transition designs to production.
• Support DFM, DFA, DFT, calibration, and assembly strategies for electromechanical subsystems.
• Contribute to actuator sourcing strategy, vendor qualification, and supply-chain development.
• Document designs and validation results to support maintenance and production readiness.
• Help establish engineering standards, integration practices, and development workflows.

Skills

Gearing design

Actuator integration

Precision machining

Thermal management

CAD/PLM (NX)

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

NX

Teamcenter

Job description

OpenAI in San Francisco, CA, seeks an Actuator Gear Design Engineer to lead the development of custom gears and gear stages for advanced robotic systems. You will own actuator development from concept through prototype validation and system integration, partnering with mechanical, electrical, controls, firmware, and reliability teams.

This role focuses on precision gearing design, transmission elements, sensing architectures, and integration into robotic platforms, with hands-on bring-up,