Technical Program Manager, Actuators

The role

The Technical Program Manager will own actuator development and integration from system goals through production readiness. This role involves driving actuator programs across mechanical, electrical, firmware, and supply chain domains to deliver reliable systems.

What you will do

• Drive actuator programs end-to-end, aligning scope, milestones, interfaces, dependencies, and exit criteria.
• Drive scope lock and technical convergence for sprints, MVPs, and stretch goals.
• Coordinate actuator development across motors, gears, sensing, electronics, and firmware.
• Align electrical and mechanical interfaces that connect actuators to the broader robot.
• Lead validation planning from early prototypes through engineering validation, reliability testing, and production readiness.
• Drive tradeoff decisions across cost, quality, performance, schedule, and lead time.
• Establish mechanisms for technical reviews, change control, design releases, decision tracking, and manufacturing readiness.
• Surface risks early and drive decisions, owners, and actions to closure.

Required qualifications

• Led complex electromechanical hardware programs from development through manufacturing.
• Ability to reason about an actuator's internal architecture and system integration through PCBAs, connectors, and cables.
• Ability to work effectively across ME, EE, firmware, interconnecting harnesses, controls, test, reliability, manufacturing, and supply chain.
• Understanding of hardware development realities including prototype cycles, long-lead parts, suppliers, testing, design changes, and production ramp.

About the company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Robotics team focuses on unlocking general-purpose robotics and advancing toward AGI-level intelligence.