OpenAI
Hardware Operations Engineer
Part remote, part office, you need to live within commuting distance of a named location.
Hybrid · San Francisco
Employer listed it 3 months ago · Added 5 days ago
Been open since 3 months ago. Long-running listings are sometimes left up after the role is filled.
Salary
$157,000 to $302,000
Location
Hybrid · San Francisco
Timezone
Not stated
Contract
Full-time
Experience
Senior
Category
Software
Published by the employer
Remote flexibility
Hybrid
This role is only partly remote, the employer expects time in the office around San Francisco, Seattle, US - Remote, Hybrid, so you need to live within commuting distance.
What the employer says
- Source listing states candidate location: "San Francisco, Seattle, US - Remote, Hybrid"
- Listing mentions "Hybrid" and 5 days per week in the office
What Nomaders makes of it
- Not suitable if you plan to move between countries
The quotes above are the employer's own words; the reading is ours. Always check the original listing and employment terms before working from another country.
About the role
About the Team
OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. Our Industrial Compute organization develops and deploys large-scale AI campuses designed to support the next generation of frontier model training and inference workloads.
The Hardware Operations team is responsible for ensuring the reliability, availability, and lifecycle health of OpenAI’s compute infrastructure. We partner closely with Data Center Operations, Fleet Health Engineering, Manufacturing, Network Infrastructure, Capacity Planning, and our infrastructure partners to maintain world-class operational performance across rapidly expanding AI environments.
As we scale globally, we are building the operational frameworks, reliability standards, and sustaining engineering practices required to support thousands of GPUs and servers across multiple campuses.
About the Role
We are seeking a Hardware Operations Engineer to serve as the technical authority for hardware reliability and fleet health at one of OpenAI’s flagship AI campuses.
This role operates at the intersection of hardware operations, sustaining engineering, and fleet reliability. You will partner closely with Cloud Service Provider operations teams, OpenAI fleet-health engineers, hardware engineering teams, and OEM vendors to identify, diagnose, and resolve hardware issues affecting production systems.
Beyond day-to-day operational support, you will drive root cause investigations, reliability improvement initiatives, lifecycle management programs, and operational readiness efforts. You will help establish hardware maintenance standards, operational procedures, and best practices that scale across future OpenAI infrastructure deployments.
The ideal candidate combines deep hands-on datacenter hardware expertise with strong troubleshooting, failure analysis, and cross-functional leadership skills.
Candidates must be able to sit onsite at our datacenters 5 days per week.
Key Responsibilities
Drive technical triage and resolution of complex hardware failures impacting production systems.
Partner with Fleet Health Engineering to investigate recurring hardware issues, identify failure patterns, and improve fleet reliability.
Lead root cause analysis (RCA) efforts for critical hardware incidents and develop corrective and preventive action plans.
Collaborate with Cloud Service Provider operations teams and OEM vendors to coordinate repairs, replacements, upgrades, and hardware lifecycle activities.
Establish and continuously improve hardware maintenance procedures, operational runbooks, and troubleshooting standards.
Analyze hardware failure trends and operational metrics to identify reliability risks and improvement opportunities.
Support new hardware introductions, validation activities, and production readiness reviews.
Coordinate spare parts strategy and inventory planning with supply chain and site teams.
Partner with Hardware Engineering, Manufacturing, and Infrastructure teams to provide field feedback that improves future platform designs.
Develop scalable operational standards and best practices that can be deployed across future Stargate campuses.
Mentor on-site technicians and partner teams on advanced troubleshooting methodologies and hardware operational excellence.
Qualifications
8+ years of experience supporting large-scale datacenter hardware infrastructure, with experience in a senior technician, sustaining engineering, or hardware operations leadership role.
Requirements
- ·8+ years of experience supporting large-scale datacenter hardware infrastructure, with experience in a senior technician, sustaining engineering, or hardware operations leadership role.
- ·Deep expertise with server platforms, GPU systems, storage infrastructure, rack integration, and datacenter hardware architecture.
- ·Strong experience diagnosing complex hardware failures and leading repair efforts in production environments.
- ·Experience conducting root cause analysis and driving long-term corrective actions.
- ·Strong understanding of hardware reliability engineering principles and fleet-health management.
Benefits
No benefits package published with this listing. Ask about it at first interview.
How to apply
- 1Check the flexibility label above, hybrid, matches where you plan to live and work.
- 2Tailor your CV to the role at OpenAI, mentioning your remote working experience.
- 3Apply directly on the employer's careers page using the button below. Nomaders never handles your application.
Found 5d ago. Last checked 23 Sept. Always confirm the details on the original posting, salary and location can change after publication.
Listing sourced from Company boards.
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$157,000 to $302,000 · You'll be taken to the employer's careers page.