Mechanical Engineer, Soft Goods Design

About the Team

Our 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.

About the Role

We are seeking a Mechanical Engineer to lead the engineering, characterization, and productionization of flexible and compliant components in robotic platforms.

You will partner closely with cross-functional teams to translate material concepts into engineered subsystems that meet functional, durability, and manufacturing requirements. This role focuses on understanding how soft materials behave in dynamic mechanical systems — including fatigue, creep, hysteresis, wear, and environmental degradation — and designing assemblies that perform consistently at scale.

You will work with materials such as elastomers, foams, thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs), engineered fabrics, knitted and woven textiles, cables, and other flexible load-bearing or transmission elements, integrating them with rigid hardware, sensors, and actuators using fabrication methods such as bonding, molding, lamination, and sewn assemblies.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, and requires in-person presence 4 days a week.

In this role, you will

- Design and integrate compliant or flexible materials into mechanical subsystems and rigid hardware interfaces.

- Leverage FEA tools to characterize material behavior under operational loads, including tension, compression, abrasion, fatigue, and environmental exposure.

- Develop test methods and validation protocols to evaluate durability, performance, and failure modes of soft components.

- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to transition early prototypes into manufacturable designs.

- Source and evaluate materials in collaboration with supply chain partners and specialty fabricators.

- Work with contract manufacturers on fabrication methods such as bonding, lamination, molding, overmolding, cut-and-sew, and composite layups.

- Analyze system-level tradeoffs between compliance, durability, manufacturability, and integration constraints.

- Document material specifications, test data, and mechanical performance to support design iteration and production readiness.

- Investigate field failures and iterate designs based on observed wear patterns and performance degradation.

You might thrive in this role if you

- Understand mechanical tradeoffs in elastomers, foams, textiles, and flexible composites.

- Enjoy working across the full lifecycle from early prototyping through production.

- Can develop test fixtures or experiments to characterize material or assembly behavior.

- Are comfortable collaborating with both design and manufacturing partners.

- Are detail-oriented and rigorous about documentation and repeatability.

Preferred qualifications

- Degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent.

- Experience with A-surface and cosmetic component development

- Experience integrating soft or compliant components into robotic, wearable, medical, automotive, or industrial hardware systems.

- Familiarity with environmental or durability testing (abrasion, ingress, cyclic loading, UV, temperature).

- Experience working with contract manufacturers or specialty fabricators.

- Familiarity with material characterization methods for flexible materials.

- Experience transitioning flexible-material prototypes into production designs.

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 Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

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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At 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.