Founding Software Engineer, Physical Engineering

About the TeamThe Physical Engineering team sits within OpenAI’s Enterprise Verticals organization. We’re exploring how frontier AI can help people design, simulate, and build better physical products—shortening development cycles, improving product performance, and expanding what engineering teams can accomplish.

Our initial focus is on mechanical and electrical engineering. We’re building experiences within ChatGPT and integrations with engineering software to help engineers move from early concepts through design, simulation, and preparation for production.

We operate as a small founding team within OpenAI, working directly with customers and closely with research, design, and forward deployed engineers. We learn by building, putting products in users’ hands, and using their feedback to guide our next steps.

About the RoleAs a Founding Full Stack Software Engineer, you’ll help define and build the product and technical foundations of this new vertical. You’ll work across frontend experiences, backend services, and integrations to bring AI into complex engineering workflows.

You’ll combine strong software engineering fundamentals with product judgment and an eye for intuitive user experiences. Working directly with engineers and design partners, you’ll identify valuable problems, prototype solutions, and develop them into reliable products.

We’re particularly interested in engineers who have built CAD, CAE, simulation, or other engineering design software. You should be comfortable owning work independently, making decisions with incomplete information, and moving between product details and system architecture.

This is an opportunity to shape a new product area from its earliest stages, with significant influence over what we build, how it works, and the team we become.

In this role, you will:- Build and ship full-stack AI products that help mechanical and electrical engineers work through design and simulation tasks.

• Own projects from customer discovery and prototyping through production deployment and iteration.

• Create intuitive interfaces that help users understand, inspect, and refine complex engineering outputs.

• Develop backend services, APIs, plugins, and integrations that connect OpenAI models with engineering software.

• Work directly with customers to understand engineering constraints, identify valuable applications, and translate specific needs into broadly useful products.

• Partner with research, design, platform, and forward deployed engineering teams to bring emerging AI capabilities into practical workflows.

• Evaluate quality and reliability, using customer feedback and product evidence to understand whether we’re improving how engineers work.

• Help establish the technical foundations and engineering practices of a growing team.

You might thrive in this role if you:- Have independently built and shipped substantial software products, with ownership across frontend and backend systems.

• Bring strong product instincts and UI judgment, especially for tools that make complex work easier to understand and perform.

• Enjoy working directly with users and translating their needs into thoughtful product and technical decisions.

• Can turn an ambiguous opportunity into a clear starting point and a working product.

• Move quickly, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and stay accountable for quality after launch.

• Learn unfamiliar tools and domains quickly and communicate clearly across disciplines.

• Are excited about applying frontier AI to the design and development of physical products.

Particularly relevant experience- Building CAD, CAE, simulation, electrical design, or related professional software.

• Developing interactive tools for visual, spatial, or technically complex workflows.

• Connecting engineering tools through APIs, plugins, or extensions.

• Building AI-powered applications and evaluating their usefulness and reliability.

• Taking a product from concept t...