Key Takeaways
- OpenAI has expanded its robotics hiring, listing 27 roles, up from 11 in May, across hardware, software, data and prototyping.
- Publicly listed base pay on OpenAI’s careers page ranges from $177,000 to $500,000, before equity.
- Its top-paying robotics opening, offering up to $500,000 in base salary, centers on building the underlying infrastructure to process training data.
OpenAI’s robotics push comes with salaries of up to $500,000.
According to a recent report from Business Insider, OpenAI is going big on robotics — and backing its focus with sizable salaries. At the time of writing, the startup had 27 robotics jobs open on its careers page, up from 11 openings in May.
The roles included hardware, data collection, software and prototyping. They come with base salaries ranging from $177,000 to $500,000, plus equity and bonuses. For example, one role as a robotics software engineer in San Francisco pays $255,000 to $325,000 in base pay and offers additional undisclosed equity and performance-related bonuses. The role requires at least five years of professional software engineering experience developing systems in robotics.
OpenAI offers generous benefits as well, including a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match, paid parental leave of up to 24 weeks and daily meals in the office.
Inside the job postings
The highest-compensated role is a machine learning engineering position focused on the systems that handle robotics data at scale. The job involves building the underlying infrastructure to process, store and move training data across large networks of computers. It carries a listed base salary of up to $500,000.
Cornell mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Guy Hoffman told Business Insider that the robotics job postings indicate that OpenAI is creating a “custom robot design team.”
The startup is recruiting engineers to develop robot hardware, including the motors and mechanical systems that power movement.
The openings also include a lab technician who would build, test and refine robotic systems, as well as an in-house lawyer assigned specifically to the robotics group.
One job asks the candidate to manage OpenAI’s data collection facilities. Unlike language models, which can learn from the massive trove of text and images online, robots need real-world examples of people, objects and machines interacting in physical environments. That data is harder to find, so robotics companies must frequently capture it themselves or purchase it from specialized providers.
OpenAI’s robotics aspirations
The language in the job listings frames robotics as a major long-term bet for OpenAI. One posting described the team’s mission as advancing general-purpose robots and working towards human-like intelligence across multiple types of robotic machines.
Another job lays out an even broader aspiration: A future in which “everyone” has a personal robot “doing anything they need.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has become increasingly direct about the company’s plans to move from software into physical machines.
In an interview on the podcast Sources earlier this month, Altman said that OpenAI will “definitely do a humanoid” and “other form factors as well,” or other robot designs suited to different jobs.
Altman pointed to data centers as a likely early use case, suggesting that purpose-built robots could help operate and maintain the enormous computing infrastructure powering AI. Longer term, he described a consumer vision in which people own personal robots capable of handling a wide range of everyday tasks.
Key Takeaways
- OpenAI has expanded its robotics hiring, listing 27 roles, up from 11 in May, across hardware, software, data and prototyping.
- Publicly listed base pay on OpenAI’s careers page ranges from $177,000 to $500,000, before equity.
- Its top-paying robotics opening, offering up to $500,000 in base salary, centers on building the underlying infrastructure to process training data.
OpenAI’s robotics push comes with salaries of up to $500,000.
According to a recent report from Business Insider, OpenAI is going big on robotics — and backing its focus with sizable salaries. At the time of writing, the startup had 27 robotics jobs open on its careers page, up from 11 openings in May.
The roles included hardware, data collection, software and prototyping. They come with base salaries ranging from $177,000 to $500,000, plus equity and bonuses. For example, one role as a robotics software engineer in San Francisco pays $255,000 to $325,000 in base pay and offers additional undisclosed equity and performance-related bonuses. The role requires at least five years of professional software engineering experience developing systems in robotics.