Strategic Sourcing Manager, Data Center Infrastructure, Electrical & Mechanical
OpenAI · San Francisco, CA · Cloud, IT and infrastructure · posted today
OpenAI · San Francisco, CA · posted 75 days ago
By AtiveSite · Published 07/11/2026 · Updated 09/11/2026 · Every figure is linked to its source below.
| Employer | OpenAI |
|---|---|
| Location | San Francisco, California |
| Field | Engineering, Construction and Energy › Manufacturing and hardware engineering |
| Level | not stated |
| Source category | Consumer Devices, Software |
| Posted | 2026-08-26 (75 days ago) |
| Work arrangement | On-site at the location listed |
| Pay | Not published in the source listing |
The Consumer Devices team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world. We work at the intersection of custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, and cloud services to deliver reliable, production-ready devices at scale.
We are looking for an Operating Systems Engineer to build and harden the OS foundations for OpenAI products. We are especially interested in experienced, passionate, and innovative operating systems developers who thrive on building foundational platform software and solving hard problems in security, privacy, performance, power, and reliability. You will work across the OS kernel, core OS services, security and privacy primitives, performance and power, and the frameworks that connect applications and UI to the system. This role emphasizes deep debugging and systems ownership from development through production.
You will collaborate closely with embedded, firmware, hardware, application, and product engineering teams. Experience with hardware bring-up is a plus, but not required.
Work on end-to-end OS capabilities spanning the OS kernel, userspace services, application frameworks, UI toolkits, and application-facing APIs.
Develop, integrate, and maintain OS components, both kernel-bound and in userspace, including scheduling, memory management, filesystems, drivers, IPC/RPC mechanisms, and security-relevant subsystems.
Build and maintain core OS services and daemons (init, service management, device discovery, networking primitives, time, logging, update hooks, crash handling, and so on).
Design and implement security and privacy mechanisms:
Secure boot and measured boot integration points (where applicable).
Mandatory access control and sandboxing.
Secrets management, secure storage, key handling, and least-privilege service design.
Privacy-preserving telemetry, data minimization, and user-consent oriented system behaviors.
Establish a performance and power discipline:
Instrumentation, profiling, and regression detection for boot time, latency, throughput, and memory.
Power measurement workflows, battery and thermal aware tuning, and energy regression prevention.
Build first-class debugging and observability for the OS:
Tracing and profiling using tools such as ftrace, perf, eBPF, BPFtrace, LTTng, systemtap, flamegraphs.
Crash triage and root cause analysis across kernel and userspace, including postmortem tooling and symbolication.
Provide stable, well-documented platform interfaces for application frameworks and UI frameworks:
Windowing/compositing primitives (e.g., Wayland), input pipelines, graphics stack integration (e.g., DRM/KMS), and UI performance.
System APIs for permissions, notifications, background execution, storage, device access, and lifecycle management.
Contribute to reliability and release readiness:
Production hardening, incident response participation, and cross-team debugging.
Test strategy across unit, integration, and hardware-in-the-loop environments; improve coverage and reduce flakiness.
Strong experience with systems programming (such as with Linux, BSD, etc), including meaningful work in the kernel (drivers, core subsystems, or platform enablement) and operating systems.
Professional proficiency in C, C++ for low-level systems development.
Experience building or maintaining core OS services and platform software (system services, daemons, init/service management, device management, logging/telemetry pipelines).
Track record of debugging complex issues across kernel/userspace boundaries using tracing, profiling, and structured root cause analysis.
Familiarity with security fundamentals in OS design: isolation boundaries, privilege separation, secure IPC, attack surface reduction, and vulnerability mitigation practices.
Production experience with Rust in systems contexts (kernel-adjacent tooling, userspace services, security-sensitive components, or performance-critical libraries).
Experience with OS security hardening: SELinux/AppArmor policy, sandboxing, seccomp, namespaces/cgroups, secure boot chains, exploit mitigations.
Experience setting up and operationalizing observability: eBPF-based tooling, perf pipelines, automated regression detection.
Performance and power optimization experience, including measurement methodology (power rails, battery instrumentation, thermal constraints) and closed-loop tuning.
Experience supporting application or UI frameworks at the OS boundary (Wayland/compositors, graphics pipeline performance, input latency, lifecycle/permission models).
Hardware bring-up exposure (bootloader/early boot debugging, device tree/ACPI, board revisions, peripheral enablement), even if not your primary background.
Experience with OTA/update systems, partitioning strategies, rollback/health checks, and update security (signing, provenance).
Experience contributing to upstream open source projects (Linux kernel, system components) and managing long-lived downstream patches responsibly.
The OS is secure by default, privacy-preserving, and designed for least privilege.
Performance and power characteristics are measurable, repeatable, and continuously improved with low regression rates.
Debugging is fast: tracing, logs, crash artifacts, and metrics make issues diagnosable in development and in the field.
Application and UI teams have stable, well-documented system interfaces that enable high-quality product experiences.
You take ownership across boundaries: kernel, services, tooling, and the interfaces that applications rely on.
You are comfortable making careful tradeoffs between security, privacy, performance, power, and developer velocity.
You communicate clearly with partner teams and can translate low-level findings into actionable changes.
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.
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.
To 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.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
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.
Field: Engineering, Construction and Energy Sub-niche: Manufacturing and hardware engineering All jobs at OpenAI Jobs in California Jobs in San Francisco, CA San Francisco city guide California state guide San Francisco County economy
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This is a — role in the Engineering, Construction and Energy field (Manufacturing and hardware engineering) at OpenAI.
We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.
Estimate for a wage earner: 2026 federal brackets and standard deduction (IRS), Social Security 6.2% up to $184,500, Medicare 1.45% (+0.9% above $200,000 single / $250,000 married), and a state rate you set; set your own state tax rate. It ignores credits, pre-tax deductions, local taxes and benefits. Sources: IRS: tax year 2026 inflation adjustments · SSA wage base per Federal Register notice 2025-19763.
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The job is in San Francisco, CA. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.
How San Francisco compares. Among the 145 largest places in California, San Francisco is #4 by population, #139 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #20 for remote work (#1 = most), #25 for college degrees (#1 = most). Its county, San Francisco County, is #3 of 58 counties for average pay ($174,103).
San Francisco has 830,235 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 2.1% of the population of California. It covers 47 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 17,784 people per square mile. The median age is 40.0, 6% older than the state median (40.0 against 37.9).
The median gross rent is $2,476 a month (rent plus utilities), 22% above the state median ($2,476 against $2,036). Over a year that is 21.1% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $1,394,500, which is 9.9 times the median household income ($140,970); a ratio above 5 usually means buying is out of reach without savings or a second income. 38.2% of households own their home, 32% below the state average (38.2% against 55.9%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.
The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metropolitan area has 2,373,920 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $74,260 a year, 46% above the national median ($74,260 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (226,320 jobs, median $62,120); management (223,100 jobs, median $176,340); business and financial operations (207,030 jobs, median $112,960). The area is most specialised in computer and mathematical (1.9 times) and life, physical, and social science (1.8 times), where the share of workers is well above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($176,340) and computer and mathematical ($167,770). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of San Francisco County was 4.0%. 69.6% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in San Francisco County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.
Among workers, 28.6% drive alone, 18.7% use public transit, 9.3% walk, 31.0% work from home. 21.6% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 11% above the state average (21.6% against 19.4%). Remote work is more common than in the state as a whole, which widens the set of employers a resident can work for without moving.
60.3% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 63% above the state share (60.3% against 37.1%). 34.0% of residents were born outside the United States, 26% above the state share (34.0% against 27.0%). The poverty rate is 11.2%, 7% below the state rate (11.2% against 12.0%).
The warmest month is Sep, averaging 59°F (14.9°C), and the coolest is Apr at 53°F (11.6°C). About 515 mm (20 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; Dec is the wettest month (112 mm) and Jul the driest (2 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.
Closest cities in this guide: Daly City (31 miles, rent 3% higher); Pacifica (31 miles, rent 25% higher); San Bruno (34 miles, rent 12% higher); Millbrae (36 miles, rent 32% higher). Rent differences are against San Francisco; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.
Full guide to San Francisco →California guideAll jobs in San Francisco
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Places within 50 miles (straight line) of San Francisco, CA that have a guide, with what living there costs. No pay estimate is shown because the title did not match one occupation.
| Place ⇅ | Distance from the job city ⇅ | Median rent ⇅ | Median home value ⇅ | Median household income ⇅ | Commute 45+ min ⇅ | Rent as % of occupation pay ⇅ | Open jobs there ⇅ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 0 mi | $2,476 | $1,394,500 | $140,970 | 21.6% | n/a | Jobs |
| Daly City, CA | 31 mi | $2,551 | $1,115,000 | $123,547 | 19.6% | n/a | Jobs |
| Pacifica, CA | 31 mi | $3,098 | $1,249,800 | $160,523 | 15.5% | n/a | — |
| San Bruno, CA | 34 mi | $2,773 | $1,207,500 | $141,272 | 12.2% | n/a | — |
| Millbrae, CA | 36 mi | $3,272 | $1,934,900 | $163,476 | 21.8% | n/a | Jobs |
| Brisbane, CA | 36 mi | $2,574 | $1,232,200 | $156,169 | 29.8% | n/a | — |
| South San Francisco, CA | 36 mi | $2,802 | $1,188,800 | $136,578 | 15.2% | n/a | Jobs |
| Half Moon Bay, CA | 37 mi | $2,433 | $1,549,500 | $157,884 | 26.7% | n/a | — |
| Burlingame, CA | 38 mi | $2,785 | $2,000,001 | $174,000 | 23.1% | n/a | Jobs |
| Richmond, CA | 40 mi | $1,960 | $668,200 | $95,391 | 28.8% | n/a | — |
| San Mateo, CA | 41 mi | $3,077 | $1,618,700 | $153,504 | 15.8% | n/a | Jobs |
| Berkeley, CA | 41 mi | $2,133 | $1,413,900 | $108,092 | 20.8% | n/a | Jobs |
| Alameda, CA | 42 mi | $2,474 | $1,235,700 | $137,697 | 27.3% | n/a | Jobs |
| Belmont, CA | 43 mi | $2,875 | $2,000,001 | $205,297 | 18.6% | n/a | Jobs |
| Oakland, CA | 44 mi | $1,979 | $929,900 | $101,600 | 21.9% | n/a | Jobs |
| Foster City, CA | 44 mi | $3,501 | $1,838,200 | $199,143 | 20.6% | n/a | Jobs |
| San Carlos, CA | 45 mi | $2,854 | $2,000,001 | $237,470 | 14.9% | n/a | Jobs |
| Redwood City, CA | 47 mi | $2,968 | $1,801,700 | $157,814 | 10.2% | n/a | Jobs |
| San Leandro, CA | 48 mi | $2,186 | $844,200 | $101,420 | 23.7% | n/a | — |
| Atherton, CA | 49 mi | $3,501 | $2,000,001 | $250,001 | 7.0% | n/a | — |
We could not match this title to one occupation, so here are the other sub-niches in Engineering, Construction and Energy, where your skills may carry over:
Construction and field engineering (447) Energy and utilities (599)
How far San Francisco, CA is from the 20 largest US cities, in straight-line miles (not driving distance). Click a column to sort.
| From ⇅ | Straight-line distance (miles) ⇅ | Population of that city ⇅ |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 0 mi | 830,235 |
| San Jose, CA | 73 mi | 990,138 |
| Los Angeles, CA | 364 mi | 3,857,263 |
| San Diego, CA | 475 mi | 1,389,526 |
| Phoenix, AZ | 678 mi | 1,642,323 |
| Seattle, WA | 684 mi | 754,195 |
| Denver, CO | 986 mi | 718,877 |
| Oklahoma City, OK | 1,420 mi | 697,125 |
| Fort Worth, TX | 1,484 mi | 963,194 |
| Dallas, TX | 1,515 mi | 1,307,930 |
| San Antonio, TX | 1,516 mi | 1,479,835 |
| Austin, TX | 1,530 mi | 979,539 |
| Houston, TX | 1,673 mi | 2,328,253 |
| Chicago, IL | 1,885 mi | 2,711,226 |
| Indianapolis, IN | 1,979 mi | 885,860 |
| Columbus, OH | 2,142 mi | 914,802 |
| Charlotte, NC | 2,332 mi | 903,844 |
| Jacksonville, FL | 2,403 mi | 977,670 |
| Philadelphia, PA | 2,550 mi | 1,579,706 |
| New York, NY | 2,602 mi | 8,483,844 |
| City ⇅ | Straight-line distance ⇅ | Open jobs ⇅ |
|---|---|---|
| Alameda, CA | 42 mi | 38 |
| Belmont, CA | 43 mi | 2 |
| Redwood City, CA | 47 mi | 45 |
| Palo Alto, CA | 54 mi | 298 |
| Sunnyvale, CA | 60 mi | 83 |
| Fremont, CA | 62 mi | 6 |
| Pleasanton, CA | 63 mi | 6 |
| Milpitas, CA | 66 mi | 2 |
| Campbell, CA | 67 mi | 7 |
| San Jose, CA | 73 mi | 698 |
| Capitola, CA | 79 mi | 1 |
| Sacramento, CA | 103 mi | 53 |
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A private-sector role in engineering, construction and energy (manufacturing and hardware engineering) listed 75 days ago. The full description is on this page and on the employer's page.
San Francisco, CA.
Use the "View this job and apply on the employer's page" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.
The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.
Median rent in San Francisco is $2,476 a month and median household income $140,970 (ACS 2020–2024).
It was posted on 2026-08-26 (75 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.
Yes: browse manufacturing and hardware engineering jobs in California.
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