Product Reliability Engineer

OpenAI, San Francisco

The role

We’re looking for a Product Reliability Engineer to own reliability engineering for advanced IT hardware, from printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) through compute and networking trays, systems, and fully integrated racks. You’ll translate operating conditions and service-life goals into reliability requirements, design and execute qualification tests, and drive failure analysis and corrective-action verification from development through production and field deployment.

Working with electrical, mechanical, thermal, manufacturing, quality, and data center teams, suppliers, and manufacturing partners, you’ll use test and field evidence to improve hardware durability, serviceability, and availability.

All jobs

Product Reliability Engineer

OpenAI, San Francisco

Posted pay

$207K–$365K

a year

Compared with similar jobs

This base pay is above the median for infrastructure, platform and SRE jobs in the Bay Area with no level in the job title.

Median: $215K a year
Other jobs in the group: 645

We compare the middle of each posted range. This is base pay as posted. The group does not include this job.

Location: San Francisco
Work type: Hybrid
Level: Not given
Skills in the job text: Python
PCB design
R
Posted: 22 days ago
Last check: 7 h ago
Job type: Infra, platform & SRE, Inference & ML systems, ML / AI engineering

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OpenAI

Open tech jobs: 424
With posted pay: 90%
Median posted base: $266K–$414K

About OpenAI: funding, hiring and pay

OpenAI

About OpenAI: funding, hiring and pay

Company facts

Money raised: $51.3BSum of funding rounds on record
Newest round: Funding roundMar 31, 2025

Funding records can have errors and can be missing. The company page has the links.

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The role

What you will do

Define reliability requirements and targets for PCBAs, trays, systems, and racks using mission profiles, expected service life, operating environments, duty cycles, and availability goals.
Drive design-for-reliability reviews with electrical, mechanical, and thermal engineers. Use failure modes and effects analysis (DFMEA or FMEA) and physics of failure to prioritize risks and recommend design improvements. Own component de-rating guidelines and guidance.
Own reliability qualification plans from new product introduction through production, defining test coverage, representative configurations, sample sizes, stress conditions, duration, pass/fail criteria, and exit evidence at each assembly level.
Develop and execute accelerated life and environmental tests, including temperature cycling, humidity exposure, power cycling, shock, vibration, and transport testing. Exercise hardware under representative workloads and monitor function and degradation during stress.
Analyze life-test and field data using Weibull and other reliability models, acceleration models, and confidence intervals. State assumptions, exposure, and uncertainty when estimating failure rates, useful life, or reliability against targets.
Lead failure investigations from symptom reproduction through physical root cause. Maintain failure reporting, analysis, and corrective-action records, and verify fixes through targeted testing and recurrence monitoring.
Review supplier reliability plans and evidence for PCBs, PCBa components/assemblies, cables, connectors, and cooling components. Identify gaps between component qualification and the stresses encountered in the integrated system or rack.
Work hands-on with internal and partner labs to develop fixtures, instrumentation, and test methods. Review sample traceability, test configurations, calibration, raw data, and failure capture, including on-site support at manufacturing partners.
Partner with manufacturing and quality engineers to establish and validate reliability screens, burn-in where justified, and ongoing reliability testing. Confirm screening detects relevant defects without consuming unacceptable product life.
Evaluate reliability risks introduced by assembly and integration: board strain and solder-joint damage, connector mating and retention, cable routing, fastener preload, power connections, and thermal interfaces. Partner with cooling specialists on leak integrity, material compatibility, corrosion, and cooling performance over life.
Plan reliability test resources, lab capacity, hardware samples, schedules, and dependencies across programs with engineering teams, technical program managers, suppliers, and manufacturing partners.
Present qualification results, unresolved failure modes, and residual risk at design and release reviews. Make evidence-based readiness recommendations and clearly identify test gaps, required follow-up, and decisions for accountable owners.
Assess reliability impact and define targeted requalification for design, component, supplier, manufacturing process, and repair changes, including firmware changes that alter hardware operating stresses.
Track field returns and fleet failure trends with service and data center teams. Correlate telemetry, failure analysis, and configuration history to prioritize corrective actions and feed lessons into future designs and qualification plans.
Validate serviceability and repeated assembly or maintenance operations, including connector mating cycles and component replacement. Work with system engineers to assess how hardware failures, redundancy, and recovery affect rack availability.

What you need

Have hands-on reliability engineering experience with advanced IT hardware, such as AI/HPC servers, networking equipment, or storage systems, spanning PCBAs, electromechanical assemblies, and integrated racks.
Have designed, instrumented, and executed hardware reliability tests, debugged failures in the lab, and translated results into practical design or process improvements.
Understand failure mechanisms in electronic assemblies, including solder fatigue, PCB and laminate damage, connector wear, corrosion, and thermal or mechanical degradation.
Can turn mission profiles and failure risks into qualification plans, select defensible sample sizes and stress levels, and explain the assumptions and limits of accelerated testing.
Have led reliability qualification through development and production milestones, balancing sample availability, lab capacity, schedule, and the evidence needed for release decisions.
Have worked directly with component suppliers, joint design manufacturers, contract manufacturers, and external test labs to review test methods, resolve failures, and verify corrective actions.
Apply design for reliability, DFMEA, and physics-of-failure methods across electrical, mechanical, and thermal interfaces, and understand how manufacturing, assembly, handling, and repair affect long-term reliability.
Have driven structured failure analysis and corrective action using methods such as 8D, supported by electrical diagnostics, microscopy, X-ray, cross-section analysis, or specialist failure-analysis labs as appropriate.
Can analyze reliability and life-test data, including censored data, Weibull distributions, and confidence bounds, using tools such as Python, R, JMP, or equivalent statistical software.
Bring experience with high-power electronics, dense interconnects, or liquid-cooled hardware, including thermal interfaces, leak integrity, material compatibility, and serviceability.
Communicate technical findings and uncertainty clearly, distinguish verified root cause and corrective-action effectiveness from hypotheses, and prioritize reliability risks when requirements or designs change.

Product Reliability Engineer

The role

Product Reliability Engineer

The role

The team

What you will do

What you need

About OpenAI

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