{"id":2870327,"url":"https://alion.io/job/openai-mechanical-engineer-pcba-test-infrastructure-robotics","title":"Mechanical Engineer, PCBA Test Infrastructure, Robotics","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":78,"open_postings":196,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.862,"repost_share":0.005,"time_to_fill_p50_days":52,"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","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":318000,"max":423000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":423000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"GD&T","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":true},{"name":"SolidWorks","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-19T16:41:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-19","last_verified_at":"2026-10-28T02:12:57Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":8,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":8},"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 Engineer for a senior individual-contributor role leading printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) test fixtures and infrastructure for advanced robotic systems. You will independently turn evolving requirements into working fixtures, make technical tradeoffs, and own delivery from concept and detailed design through fabrication, validation, deployment, and reliable operation.\nThis role combines development-lab work with deployment at contract manufacturers. You will build precision mechanical systems for board programming, functional test, and characterization, including board nests, probe plates, connector interfaces, alignment features, clamps, enclosures, and thermal interfaces. You will partner with electrical, firmware, software, manufacturing, and reliability teams to make fixtures repeatable, protective of delicate assemblies, and maintainable as board designs evolve.\nThis role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week. Travel to contract-manufacturer sites is part of the role, with timing based on build and deployment needs.\nIn this role, you will:\nOwn the mechanical architecture of PCBA test stations, including frames, board nests, datum schemes, access, guarding, ergonomics, and serviceability.\n\nDesign probe and bed-of-nails fixtures, connector-mating mechanisms, board supports, clamps, and interchangeable tooling for programming, functional test, and characterization.\n\nUse first-principles analysis and simulation to assess stiffness, probe and insertion forces, board deflection, tolerance stacks, thermal growth, and fixture life; validate key predictions on hardware.\n\nDevelop locating and compliance features that accommodate board and assembly variation, protect components and solder joints, and preserve contact repeatability across loading cycles and board revisions.\n\nPartner with electrical engineers on test-point access, probe selection, connector engagement, ESD provisions, cable routing, cooling, and interlocks; define motion and sequencing constraints with software and controls partners.\n\nBuild, assemble, instrument, and debug fixtures in the lab. Establish acceptance checks for alignment, force, board strain where needed, contact repeatability, and cycle life; separate fixture problems from board failures.\n\nDesign safe loading, pinch-point protection, hard stops, and operator access for manual or actuated fixtures. Make wear components easy to inspect, clean, and replace.\n\nManage fabrication partners and component vendors. Release CAD, drawings, bills of materials, tolerance analyses, assembly instructions, inspection plans, and maintenance procedures.\n\nOwn fixture deployment and acceptance at contract manufacturers, including assembly and alignment checks, correlation with lab fixtures, operator training, and troubleshooting. Support replication, board-revision changes, and maintenance through released documentation.\n\nYou might thrive in this role if you:\nHave strong mechanical intuition for precision interfaces, load paths, compliance, tolerances, and the behavior of delicate electronic assemblies.\n\nMove readily between analysis, CAD, vendor collaboration, and hands-on assembly and debugging.\n\nCare about repeatable contact, controlled forces, operator usability, and equipment that others can maintain.\n\nTake ownership from concept through reliable daily operation, adapting fixtures to evolving boards and communicating clearly across electrical, software, manufacturing, and operations teams.\n\nRequired qualifications\nDemonstrated ability to independently deliver significant precision-fixture or equipment projects from ambiguous requirements through detailed design, fabrication, validation, and sustained use.\n\nStrong 3D CAD and released-drawing capability, including complete fabrication and assembly packages, bills of materials, and revision control.\n\nStrong fundamentals in GD&T, tolerance analysis, locating schemes, stiffness, compliance, contact forces, and load paths.\n\nHands-on ability to work with fabrication partners, assemble and measure fixtures, diagnose failures, and iterate hardware in a lab or manufacturing environment.\n\nAbility to define and execute fixture acceptance checks for alignment, force, repeatability, wear, and safe operation, using evidence to distinguish fixture problems from product variation.\n\nAbility to communicate interfaces and tradeoffs across electrical, software, manufacturing, and operations teams and support deployment and troubleshooting at contract manufacturers.\n\nPreferred qualifications\nDegree in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\n\nPrior PCBA test-fixture experience with board nests, probe or bed-of-nails fixtures, connector mating, and protection of delicate electronic assemblies.\n\nExperience with ESD-aware tooling, thermal interfaces, actuated fixtures, interlocks, or structural and thermal simulation.\n\nExperience with NX, SolidWorks, Creo, or equivalent tools; robotics hardware; or fixture replication and new-product builds at contract manufacturers.\n\nWhat success looks like\nDeliver a reusable PCBA fixture that meets agreed alignment, contact, board-support, and loading requirements, with demonstrated repeatability and protection of the assembly under test.\n\nValidate fixture wear and cycle life, identify sources of intermittent contact or board loading, and improve contact-related failures, changeover time, and serviceability against agreed targets.\n\nDeploy and accept the fixture at a contract manufacturer with released CAD, drawings, inspection checks, assembly instructions, spare-parts information, and maintenance procedures that enable others to reproduce and sustain it.\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. 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