The role
ABOUT THE TEAM
OpenAI Consumer Devices is building the next generation of products that bring powerful AI into people’s everyday lives. Guided by OpenAI’s mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, our team combines world-class researchers, engineers, designers, and operators who care deeply about creating useful, intuitive, and responsible technology. You’ll have the opportunity to work alongside exceptional people on ambitious, zero-to-one challenges at the intersection of hardware, software, and AI. This is a chance to help define an entirely new category of products—and shape how people experience AI in the future.
The Systems Integration team is critical in this mission, turning complex hardware-software development into reliable product signals. We build the shared infrastructure, tooling, and lab environments that let teams test quickly, understand failures, and ship with confidence.
ABOUT THE ROLE
As a Systems Integration Manager, you will lead the team responsible for device validation infrastructure, test automation, developer tooling, and lab operations. This is a player-coach leadership role: you’ll set technical and operational direction, build and develop a team of engineers and lab operations professionals, and stay close to the architecture and hardest systems problems.
You will partner closely with device software, OS, firmware, hardware, reliability, QA, and release infrastructure teams to define validation strategy, improve release readiness, and ensure our test environments and quality signals scale with the product. Because this is a new category of devices, you’ll have the rare opportunity to build the validation foundation early—shaping the systems, standards, and operating model that will support products from prototype through launch.
We’re looking for a leader who combines strong technical judgment with people leadership, operational rigor, and experience building reliable systems for complex hardware-software products.
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:
- Lead and grow the team: Hire, manage, mentor, and develop engineers and lab operations staff responsible for test infrastructure, automation, device labs, and release validation.
- Own validation strategy and release quality: Define the systems, processes, release criteria, metrics, and escalation mechanisms used to assess reliability and readiness across software, firmware, and hardware; drive improvements in test reliability, failure triage, and regression management.
- Build scalable test infrastructure: Guide the development of a stable, all-purpose testing platform, automated test frameworks, hardware-in-the-loop systems, device orchestration, diagnostics, and developer tooling—while balancing dedicated rigs for technology-specific testing needs.
- Scale lab and fleet operations: Ensure large-scale device fleets, test rigs, lab infrastructure, provisioning, maintenance, and capacity remain reliable and ready for engineering use; develop the processes, documentation, ownership models, and vendor partnerships needed to grow efficiently with the organization.
- Set priorities and roadmap: Balance near-term release needs with longer-term investments in infrastructure, automation, scalability, and operational efficiency.
- Partner across teams: Work closely with hardware, embedded systems, QA, reliability, and release teams to improve product testability and resolve cross-functional quality issues.
- Own and communicate product quality: Pull metrics and aggregate test reports from multiple sources into a coherent message, carrying the voice of quality and advising on product launch readiness.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- Experience leading engineering teams responsible for systems integration, test infrastructure, developer tooling, device quality, or hardware-software validation.
- Strong technical background in software engineering, embedded systems, test automation, or systems engineering.
- Extensive background in consumer hardware products and understand the challenges of validating software, firmware, and physical devices together.
YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU:
- Have successfully operated or scaled automated testing and hardware-in-the-loop environments.
- Are comfortable using data and quality signals to make release decisions and prioritize engineering investments.
- Have experience managing engineers while partnering closely with lab technicians, QA teams, vendors, or hardware operations teams.
- Can move comfortably between technical architecture, operational problems, people management, and cross-functional execution.
- Build strong teams, establish clear ownership, and create an environment where engineers can execute quickly without compromising reliability or quality.
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.