engineering
Posted Dec 23, 2025Camera Software Engineer, Consumer Devices
at openai
San Francisco, United StatesHybrid
Responsibilities
- You will work close to the hardware, diagnose real-world timing and integration issues, and build tooling that accelerates iteration across the entire camera stack.
- - Develop and maintain low-level camera software, including sensor drivers, board configuration, and camera subsystem integration across hardware revisions.
- - Build and maintain camera bring-up tooling, such as capture scripts, automated sweeps, manifests, and debugging utilities that make issues reproducible and easy to triage.
Requirements
- ABOUT THE TEAM The Consumer Products team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world.
- - Stand up camera control and repeatability features, including basic 3A loop exposure, manual overrides and locks, and deterministic presets to support validation and debugging.
- experience with embedded or Linux-based systems; comfortable debugging across kernel and userspace boundaries. - Hands-on understanding of common camera hardware interfaces (for example, MIPI CSI and sensor control buses) and the practical realities of bring-up, including power, reset, clocking, and sequencing. - Proven track record of building reliable capture paths and effective debug workflows that accelerate iteration through reproducible failures and well-scoped fixes. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS -
- Experience with common mobile or embedded SoC camera stacks and vendor frameworks. -
- About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence
Additional details
- We work at the intersection of custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, and cloud services to deliver reliable, production-ready devices at scale.
- Within Consumer Products, the camera stack is a critical sensing component.
- The team partners closely with electrical engineering, silicon vendors, systems, and higher-level perception and product teams to bring up new hardware, stabilize capture pipelines, and ensure camera systems are robust, debuggable, and ready for real-world deployment.
- This work spans early prototypes through production, with a strong emphasis on correctness, repeatability, and long-term reliability.
- ABOUT THE ROLE As a Camera Firmware Engineer, you will own low-level camera enablement on custom hardware—from early board bring-up through stable production capture.
- You will develop and maintain the firmware and software that makes camera sensors reliable, controllable, and debuggable, forming the foundation for higher-level camera pipelines and product features.
- This role is highly hands-on and systems-oriented.
- We follow a hybrid work model with four days per week in the office and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
- IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL - Bring up new camera sensors and modules on prototype and production boards, including link stability, sensor control, and correct power, reset, and clock sequencing.
- - Enable and validate core capture paths for development and production, including RAW capture for debugging, still capture, and hardware-accelerated video encode and streaming with stable timestamps and long-duration reliability.