Senior Power Generation Design Engineer for AI Campus

OpenAI, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI, Inc. is seeking a Design Engineer, Power Generation to develop and integrate scalable generation solutions for our AI infrastructure campuses.

You will translate campus load, reliability, and operating requirements into practical generation architectures, supporting both behind-the-meter generation and hybrid grid strategies. This individual contributor role offers broad technical ownership from concept through commissioning, working with utilities, OEMs, EPCs, developers, and operators

Qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering experience in power generation or industrial power systems.
• Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience taking generation projects from concept and equipment selection through detailed design, with direct involvement in procurement, construction support, commissioning, or performance testing.
• Strong understanding of generation technologies such as gas turbines or reciprocating engines and their supporting electrical, mechanical, and fuel systems, including protection, controls, grid paralleling, islanding, and black start.

Responsibilities

• Develop power-generation concepts, reference architectures, design criteria, and site-specific requirements based on campus demand, phasing, reliability targets, grid availability, fuel strategy, site constraints, and operating objectives.
• Evaluate generation technologies and system configurations, including gas turbines, reciprocating engines, fuel cells, battery energy storage, microgrids, black-start systems, and hybrid grid-connected solutions.
• Define and review plant electrical and mechanical balance-of-plant requirements, protection and controls philosophy, grid-paralleling and islanding behavior, redundancy, maintainability, and operational modes.
• Translate AI infrastructure load profiles and deployment schedules into generation capacity plans, equipment sizing, ramp strategies, performance requirements, and commissioning criteria.
• Lead technical diligence of OEM, EPC, developer, and supplier proposals; review calculations, one-line diagrams, layouts, specifications, studies, schedules, and design assumptions to identify gaps and material risks.
• Coordinate interfaces across utility interconnection, substations, campus electrical distribution, cooling systems, controls, fuel supply, emissions, water, civil design, permitting, construction, and operations.
• Evaluate tradeoffs across availability, efficiency, emissions, cost, schedule, constructibility, scalability, maintainability, and long-term operating flexibility, and document clear technical recommendations.
• Support equipment selection, procurement, design reviews, factory and site acceptance testing, construction issue resolution, commissioning, performance testing, and operational handoff.
• Investigate design or field-performance issues, drive corrective actions with partners, and incorporate lessons learned into engineering standards, specifications, and future reference designs.

Skills

Power generation

Electrical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Design reviews

Procurement

Commissioning

Performance testing

Interdisciplinary coordination

Education

Bachelor's degree in electrical or mechanical engineering

Job description

OpenAI, Inc. is seeking a Design Engineer, Power Generation to develop and integrate scalable generation solutions for our AI infrastructure campuses.

You will translate campus load, reliability, and operating requirements into practical generation architectures, supporting both behind-the-meter generation and hybrid grid strategies. This individual contributor role offers broad technical ownership from concept through commissioning, working with utilities, OEMs, EPCs, developers, and operators