Hardware Operations Engineer

The role

You will serve as the technical authority for hardware reliability and fleet health at a flagship AI campus. You will diagnose hardware issues, drive root cause investigations, and establish maintenance standards for large-scale AI infrastructure.

What you will do

• Drive technical triage and resolution of complex hardware failures
• Partner with Fleet Health Engineering to investigate recurring hardware issues
• Lead root cause analysis for critical hardware incidents
• Collaborate with Cloud Service Provider operations teams and OEM vendors
• Establish and improve hardware maintenance procedures and troubleshooting standards
• Analyze hardware failure trends and operational metrics
• Support new hardware introductions and production readiness reviews
• Coordinate spare parts strategy and inventory planning
• Provide field feedback to improve future platform designs
• Mentor on-site technicians on troubleshooting methodologies

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of experience supporting large-scale datacenter hardware infrastructure
• Experience in a senior technician, sustaining engineering, or hardware operations leadership role
• Deep expertise with server platforms, GPU systems, storage infrastructure, rack integration, and datacenter hardware architecture
• Strong experience diagnosing complex hardware failures and leading repair efforts in production environments
• Experience conducting root cause analysis and driving long-term corrective actions
• Strong understanding of hardware reliability engineering principles and fleet-health management
• Proven ability to partner effectively across engineering, operations, manufacturing, and vendor organizations
• Ability to operate independently in high-priority production environments
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience developing operational processes, maintenance standards, and technical documentation
• Ability to travel occasionally

Nice to have

• Experience supporting large-scale GPU clusters or AI/ML infrastructure environments
• Familiarity with fleet health systems, telemetry platforms, and hardware monitoring tools
• Ability to identify appropriate data and perform detailed analysis including dashboard development
• Experience with failure analysis methodologies such as FRACAS, RCCA, 5-Why, Fishbone, or FMEA
• Knowledge of Linux system administration and hardware validation workflows
• Experience supporting hyperscale datacenter operations or HPC environments
• Familiarity with server manufacturing, rack integration, and NPI-to-sustaining transitions
• Industry certifications such as CompTIA Server+, OEM hardware certifications, or equivalent experience
• Experience applying Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) practices in mission-critical datacenter environments

Before you apply

• Background checks for applicants will be administered

About the company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Industrial Compute organization develops and deploys large-scale AI campuses.