OpenAI is accelerating its robotics hiring, with a machine learning engineering opening offering a base salary of $380,000 to $500,000 per year, in addition to equity. The role focuses on the infrastructure and data pipelines used to train AI models rather than building robots directly.
A Business Insider review identified 27 robotics-related job listings, up from 11 in May. OpenAI's public careers page currently shows 21 open positions in San Francisco.
- Machine learning engineer: $380,000 to $500,000 in annual base pay; the role centers on training infrastructure and data workflows.
- Robotics software engineer: $255,000 to $325,000 in annual base pay.
- Inference engineer: $380,000 in fixed annual base pay.
The recruitment drive also covers hands-on robotics work, including actuator design, firmware engineering, printed-circuit-board expertise and prototype technician roles. OpenAI has not published salary ranges for those positions. The company has previously listed base salaries reaching $685,000 for researchers and $555,000 for hardware engineers.
OpenAI shut down its first robotics team in 2021, largely because it lacked the data needed to train such systems, before restarting the effort in 2024. It has since leased roughly 18,600 square meters of space in Richmond, California, underscoring a renewed push that combines physical robotics development with large-scale AI training data operations.
The highest-paid machine learning opening calls for substantial experience in distributed systems, large-scale infrastructure, data processing and dependable software platforms for AI training. While the listing does not specify a degree requirement or a minimum number of years of experience, its requirements indicate a senior-level position.
Applicants for the robotics software engineer role are expected to have the following qualifications:
- At least five years of professional experience.
- Advanced Rust or C++ skills.
- Experience with robots, industrial automation or hardware systems.
- A record of developing and shipping software used in production.
- Experience integrating mechanical, electronic and software components.
