Hardware Operations Engineer

OpenAI

San Francisco, United States

Full Time

Posted June 20, 2026

$157k - $302k

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Listing evidence and provenance

Source: Ashby View original listing
Freshness: Open in the current public read path; this is not an employer guarantee.Last observed October 5, 2026
Classification: Modern power-system classification not yet published for this listing.Legacy source industry field: Not Specified
Pay provenance: Employer-provided pay

Job Description

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

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.
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.

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.
Proven ability to partner effectively across engineering, operations, manufacturing, and vendor organizations.
Comfortable operating independently in high-priority production environments with significant operational responsibility.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence technical and operational decisions.
Experience developing operational processes, maintenance standards, and technical documentation.
Ability to travel occasionally to support new campus deployments and operational readiness activities.
Experience supporting large-scale GPU clusters or AI/ML infrastructure environments.
Familiarity with fleet health systems, telemetry platforms, and hardware monitoring tools.
Ability to identify appropriate data and perform detailed analysis to support all elements of this role, including dashboard development
Experience with failure analysis methodologies such as FRACAS, RCCA, 5-Why, Fishbone, or FMEA.
Knowledge of Linux system administration and hardware validation workflows.
Experience supporting hyperscale datacenter operations or HPC environments.
Familiarity with server manufacturing, rack integration, and NPI-to-sustaining transitions.
Industry certifications such as CompTIA Server+, OEM hardware certifications, or equivalent experience.
Experience applying Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) practices in mission-critical datacenter environments.