Physical Engineering Business Lead

OpenAIs Physical Engineering work explores how frontier AI can help people design simulate and build better physical products. We work directly with customers to identify high-value engineering applications that shorten development cycles improve product performance and create measurable business value.

We are hiring a Physical Engineering Business Lead to bring firsthand product engineering experience into our customer work. Youll combine deep familiarity with CAD simulation or related engineering tools with the ability to lead customer discovery explain complex ideas clearly and turn promising use cases into high-impact projects.

This is a hands-on customer-facing role. Youll work closely with customer engineering teams senior leaders forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) and account teams from early discovery through delivery. Youll help frame valuable design and simulation problems guide projects with practical engineering judgment and support adoption and measurable outcomes.

Youll also turn what we learn from customers into product feedback reusable delivery methods and recommendations for our go-to-market and partnership strategies. As the work grows this role may evolve into broader practice leadership.

• Lead discovery and workshops with customer engineering teams and senior leaders to identify high-value design and simulation use cases

• Develop promising use cases into significant projects with FDE and account teams forming clear hypotheses about value feasibility engineering constraints and adoption

• Work alongside FDEs and customer teams through delivery bringing practical engineering context surfacing risks early and helping projects achieve measurable outcomes

• Explain how AI can improve physical-product engineering grounded in real experience with CAD simulation engineering workflows and design tradeoffs

• Build customer confidence through clear technical storytelling compelling use cases and credible engineering judgment

• Maintain a clear operating cadence across priority projects with explicit owners risks decisions and success measures

• Turn customer insights into reusable discovery methods FDE guidance product feedback and recommendations for our product go-to-market and partnership strategies

• Build relationships across physical-product engineering teams and the broader design and simulation ecosystem

• Move fluidly between executive conversations technical working sessions analysis writing and delivery follow-through

• Firsthand experience designing or building physical products including substantial hands-on work with CAD simulation or related engineering tools

• Deep understanding of engineering workflows and tradeoffs with clear examples of your personal contributions and their impact on products or projects

• Strong discovery and problem-framing skills including the ability to connect engineering details to customer needs and business value

• The ability to work directly with FDEs and customer technical teams contribute practical engineering judgment and stay engaged through implementation

• Strong customer presence and the ability to explain complex technical ideas clearly to senior leaders

• Technical curiosity and the ability to learn quickly in a fast-moving environment; prior AI experience is not required

• High agency low ego sound judgment and a willingness to do the detailed work needed to move outcomes forward

• Clear communication and reliable follow-through across technical commercial and executive teams

• A background in mechanical engineering or a closely related discipline

• Consulting founder partnership or other customer-facing experience that complements direct engineering work

• Experience working in high-bar technology-forward physical-product engineering environments

• Experience translating customer or engineering insights into repeatable methods product feedback or go-to-market strategy

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 OpenAIs 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 addition job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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