Software Engineer, Quality & Developer Tools | Consumer Devices

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 293,000 - 325,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading AI research company in San Francisco is seeking a Software Engineer for Quality and Developer Tools. The successful candidate will build and maintain systems that validate software quality, design automation tools, and integrate processes into CI/CD. Ideal applicants should have a robust background in software quality, automation, and strong programming skills in Python, C, C++, or Rust. This position offers a competitive salary and supports hybrid work with relocation assistance.

Qualifications

• Deep experience building software quality and test automation systems.
• Proficient in Python, C, C++, or Rust with strong Linux fundamentals.
• Experience building CI/CD pipelines and reproducible test environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain a unified test framework for device software.
• Integrate test suites with Buildkite and enforce promotion criteria.
• Develop tools for API and firmware validation.

Skills

Python

C

C++

Rust

Linux fundamentals

Debugging skills

Test automation

Job description

About the Team

The Systems Integration team is responsible for building the infrastructure, tooling, and validation systems that ensure our device software is reliable, testable, and ready to ship. We design and maintain automated test frameworks, hardware-in-the-loop labs, and release pipelines that keep quality signals trustworthy and enable rapid, safe product launches. Our work spans developer tools, automation, systems integration, and cross-team collaboration to ensure every release meets the highest standards.

About the Role

As a Software Engineer, Quality and Developer Tools, you will build and own the systems that validate our device software—from test frameworks and regression infrastructure to hardware-in-the-loop labs and release gates. You'll design the tooling and automation that keep quality signals trustworthy, integrate them into CI/CD, and make it easy for engineers and QA vendor technicians to execute reliable, repeatable workflows.

We're looking for engineers with deep experience in software quality, automation, developer tooling, and hardware-software integration who thrive on building scalable, reliable systems for validation and release readiness.

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

In this role, you will:

• Test infrastructure & frameworks: Design, implement, and maintain a unified test framework for device software across unit, integration, system, and end-to-end testing, with reproducible runs and integrations with GitHub, Linear, and Slack.

• CI/CD integration & releases: Integrate test suites with Buildkite, enforce promotion criteria for staging and production, auto‑file regressions, and publish traceable artifacts and release notes.

• Hardware‑in‑the‑loop lab design & orchestration: Plan and bring up racks, power and networking systems, and orchestration for device testing; support automated flashing, provisioning, and telemetry capture.

• Automation and developer tooling: Develop tools for API and firmware validation, result triage, log capture, replayable bug reports, and workflows that improve engineering velocity and debugging efficiency.

• Quality signals, metrics, and flake control: Build dashboards and alerts for pass rates, stability, and release readiness; detect and quarantine flaky tests; drive root‑cause analysis with owners; and track delivery metrics that protect release health.

• Vendor enablement: Create clear procedures and tooling that allow QA vendor technicians to execute repeatable processes, review their reports, and maintain a queue of rig maintenance and repairs.

• Cross‑team collaboration: Partner with embedded and systems software teams on testability, and with release infrastructure engineers on pipelines, signing, staged rollouts, and rollback/forward strategies.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have deep experience building software quality, test automation, or developer tooling systems for hardware products shipped at scale.

• Are proficient in Python, C, C++, or Rust, and have strong Linux fundamentals, including processes, networking, storage, and udev/systemd.

• Have experience building CI/CD pipelines, artifact management systems, and reproducible or isolated test environments.

• Have demonstrated success designing and operating hardware‑in‑the‑loop labs and device orchestration systems at scale.

• Are fluent with test reliability techniques such as failure triage, flake detection and quarantine, and signal‑quality guardrails.

• Have strong debugging skills across software, firmware, devices, and release infrastructure.

• Work well across teams and enjoy improving the systems that make engineering and release processes more scalable and reliable.

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 Affir.

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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Compensation Range: $293K - $325K