{"id":597842,"url":"https://alion.io/job/openai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping","title":"Mechanical Design Engineer, Motor Design & Prototyping","company":{"id":2,"name":"OpenAI","domain":"openai.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/openai","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":79,"open_postings":192,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.849,"repost_share":0.01,"time_to_fill_p50_days":52,"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":225000,"max":318000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":318000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"OpenAI","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-10T16:17:28Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-10","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T20:49:32Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":50,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":50},"description":"About the Team\nOur Robotics team is focused on unlocking general-purpose robotics and pushing towards AGI-level intelligence in dynamic, real-world settings. Working across the entire model stack, we integrate cutting-edge hardware and software to explore a broad range of robotic form factors. We strive to seamlessly blend high-level AI capabilities with the constraints of physical systems to improve peoples’ lives.\nAbout the Role\nWe are seeking a Mechanical Design Engineer to lead the development of motor mechanical designs and prototype hardware for advanced robotic systems. You will own stator and rotor mechanical development from early concepts and detailed design through hands-on builds and prototype validation, partnering closely with electromagnetic, electrical, test, and manufacturing teams.\nThis role focuses on the design, integration, and validation of motor components and prototype processes, including laminations, stack assemblies, bobbins, winding interfaces, and fixtures. You will help drive motor development from initial design through repeatable low-volume builds while establishing the tooling, work instructions, and validation practices needed for future robotic platforms.\nThis role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week.\nIn this role, you will\nOwn stator and rotor mechanical designs and released CAD and drawings, including geometry, interfaces, fits, tolerances, retention, assembly access, and mechanical validation.\n\nDevelop laminations, stack assembly methods, bobbins, and winding interfaces that control alignment, insulation, conductor placement, and end-turn packaging.\n\nDesign, fabricate, and debug fixtures for winding, stacking, assembly, alignment, and inspection.\n\nBuild and troubleshoot prototypes. Use measurements, defects, rework, and assembly effort to improve designs and processes.\n\nEstablish low-volume prototype production with equipment, build sequences, work instructions, revision control, traceability, and acceptance checks that let technicians reproduce successful builds.\n\nTest new manufacturing methods and winding approaches, balancing performance, repeatability, and practical implementation.\n\nWork with electromagnetic, electrical, manufacturing, and test engineers to resolve tradeoffs between motor performance, packaging, buildability, and validation.\n\nYou might thrive in this role if you\nMove comfortably between CAD, the shop, measurements, and hands-on builds, and take ownership of the physical result.\n\nUnderstand how tolerances, insulation, tool access, and assembly sequence affect whether a motor can be built and used reliably.\n\nDiagnose failed builds through evidence and focused experiments, then carry the fix into the next iteration.\n\nBuild useful processes while designs evolve, and document them so others can reproduce the result.\n\nCommunicate assumptions and tradeoffs clearly and resolve coupled problems across disciplines.\n\nPreferred qualifications\nExperience designing and building motors, actuators, or other precision electromechanical assemblies.\n\nExperience with lamination stacks, bobbins, winding, insulation interfaces, or small-component assembly.\n\nProficiency in 3D CAD, manufacturing drawings, tolerance analysis, and fixture design, with hands-on metrology and inspection of critical mechanical interfaces.\n\nMachining, additive manufacturing, bonding, or other prototype manufacturing processes.\n\nExperience turning an initial build into a repeatable low-volume process.\n\nInterest in using AI to reduce repetitive design and prototype work, with careful engineering review.\n\nAbout OpenAI\nOpenAI 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.\nWe 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.\nFor additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.\nBackground 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.\nTo 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.\nWe are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.\nOpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy\nAt 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6153,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Generative Video","Code Intelligence","Foundation Models","AI Research Labs"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-10T17:06:00Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 262 · green card filings: 3","filings_12m":262,"filings_prev_12m":114,"green_card_filings_12m":3,"median_offered_wage_usd":272217,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":29,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.477,"p_room":0.6,"age_days":49,"expected_fill_days":52,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:late","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":318000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/openai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/openai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-31T00:45:06Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1051,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-01T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":2},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fopenai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fopenai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fopenai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/openai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fopenai-mechanical-design-engineer-motor-design-prototyping"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":597842}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"openai.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":597842},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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