Staff PLM & Engineering Applications Engineer, Consumer Devices
Engineering Manager · Staff · Full Time
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Role
What you'll do.
Join OpenAI's Consumer Devices team as a Staff PLM & Engineering Applications Engineer to architect and own the product lifecycle management and engineering application infrastructure for hardware development at scale. This is a hands-on, systems-oriented role where you'll build reliable, production-grade workflows around NX, Teamcenter, MCAD/ECAD/CAE applications, and product-data systems, replacing manual processes with tested automation. You'll partner directly with hardware engineering teams to define the golden path for design, simulation, and release processes, while establishing technical standards for a bootstrapped organization building the future of AI hardware.
Responsibilities
- PLM Architecture and System Ownership: Own the complete technical architecture, deployment, configuration, integration, validation, and long-term operational management of Siemens NX and Teamcenter PLM systems within the Consumer Devices hardware engineering environment. Establish baseline configurations, customization frameworks, and maintenance protocols that ensure system reliability and performance across all hardware product lines.
- Engineering Workflow Automation: Design and implement automated workflows for parts import, product-data migration, metadata quality management, bill-of-materials (BOM) generation, revision control, lifecycle state management, and release processes. Replace manual setup documentation, tribal knowledge, and repetitive tasks with tested automation scripts and validated deployment procedures that scale across the organization.
- Application Integration and Tooling: Build and maintain integrations between NX, Teamcenter, MCAD, ECAD, CAE/FEA systems, licensing servers, and cloud infrastructure. Develop custom tools, plugins, and scripts using Python, PowerShell, and Bash to extend platform capabilities, automate configuration tasks, and streamline engineering workflows without requiring manual intervention.
- Golden Path Definition and Validation: Define, document, validate, and continuously improve the ideal hardware engineer workflow from system access and CAD file retrieval through design, simulation, collaboration, release, and support. Conduct user testing with mechanical, electrical, and systems engineering teams to identify friction points and optimize the end-to-end experience across all engineering tools and compute environments.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration and Requirements Gathering: Partner with mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, simulation, manufacturing, systems, and product-design teams to deeply understand their technical needs, pain points, and workflow failures. Translate complex engineering requirements into robust platform features, integrations, and support systems while maintaining primary technical ownership and long-term accountability for solutions.
- Infrastructure and Compute Coordination: Collaborate with Compute & Infrastructure-focused HEX engineers to ensure seamless integration of PLM applications with virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), HPC clusters, GPU compute resources, storage systems, licensing services, and networking. Create unified abstractions and automated provisioning that make applications, product data, and compute feel like one coherent engineering platform.
- Vendor and Contractor Management: Partner with external contractors and Siemens vendors while maintaining all architectural decisions, technical requirements, acceptance criteria, integration validation, and long-term ownership within the HEX organization. Ensure vendor deliverables meet internal standards, scalability requirements, and strategic technology roadmap alignment.
- Observability, Diagnostics, and Support Tooling: Develop comprehensive health checks, regression tests, monitoring dashboards, diagnostic tools, and self-service recovery procedures that detect failures early and enable rapid resolution. Create support automation that reduces mean-time-to-resolution, prevents recurring issues, and scales support efficiency as the hardware engineering organization grows.
- Technical Standards and Operating Model Establishment: Help establish technical standards, best practices, operating procedures, documentation frameworks, and engineering culture for the growing HEX organization. Define policies for system access, change management, data governance, security protocols, and architectural review processes that support both current teams and future scaling.
- Data Quality and Migration Leadership: Own the strategy and execution of PLM data migrations, legacy parts database imports, product-data cleanup initiatives, and metadata standardization efforts. Establish data governance frameworks, validation procedures, and quality assurance protocols that ensure accurate BOM data, revision history, and lifecycle state integrity across all hardware projects.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Teamcenter PLM Deep Expertise
Advanced proficiency with Siemens Teamcenter Active Workspace, BMIDE (Business Modeler IDE), ITK (Teamcenter Integration Toolkit), and Teamcenter REST/SOA APIs. Hands-on experience designing custom object models, data structures, and workflow configurations within Teamcenter's framework, including customization of UI components, business rules, and integrations.
NX CAD Platform Mastery
Expert-level knowledge of Siemens NX, including NX Open application development, managed mode configuration, customer defaults setup, template creation, licensing architecture, application packaging, and upgrade procedures. Ability to extend NX capabilities through API-driven customizations and integrate NX with external systems.
PLM System Architecture and Design
Demonstrated experience owning PLM architecture, data modeling, system integrations, multi-site deployments, product-data hierarchy design, and enterprise configuration. Understanding of PLM best practices for complex hardware development environments including configuration management, change order workflows, and cross-functional data requirements.
Automation and Scripting Languages
Proficiency writing automation scripts and tools in Python, PowerShell, and Bash. Ability to develop installation scripts, configuration automation, diagnostic utilities, and workflow extensions that integrate with Teamcenter, NX, and enterprise infrastructure systems. Experience with API-driven automation across multiple platforms.
Hardware Product Data Management
Deep understanding of hardware engineering concepts including parts libraries, bill-of-materials (BOMs), configuration management, revision control schemes, lifecycle states, engineering change orders, release processes, and design data organization. Experience managing complex multi-level assemblies and documentation structures.
Application Integration and APIs
Hands-on experience integrating CAD, CAE, ECAD, ERP, and data systems through REST APIs, SOAP web services, message queuing, and middleware technologies. Ability to design data synchronization workflows, error handling, and validation logic across heterogeneous engineering tool ecosystems.
Systems Troubleshooting and Diagnostics
Advanced ability to diagnose and resolve issues across applications, infrastructure layers, licensing systems, virtual desktop infrastructure, networking, storage, compute resources, and product databases. Strong debugging methodology for complex multi-component system failures in distributed environments.
Deployment, Packaging, and Licensing
Hands-on experience with application packaging, deployment automation, infrastructure-as-code principles, version management, and software licensing models. Ability to design self-service provisioning workflows, containerization approaches (where applicable), and compliance checking for license utilization across user populations.
Education
Bachelor's Degree (Preferred)
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related technical discipline. Equivalent industry experience and demonstrated technical expertise may substitute for formal degree requirements.
Experience
PLM System Ownership in Complex Environments
Minimum 10+ years managing PLM systems (particularly Teamcenter) within hardware product-development organizations. Proven track record taking ownership of complete PLM architectures, driving system implementations, managing data migrations, and scaling systems to support growing engineering teams across multiple disciplines and product lines.
Hardware Engineering Product Development
Extensive hands-on experience working within hardware-development environments such as consumer electronics, robotics, automotive, aerospace, or advanced manufacturing. Deep understanding of hardware engineering workflows, design-to-release processes, simulation requirements, manufacturing integration, and cross-disciplinary collaboration patterns.
PLM Architecture and Data Modeling
Demonstrated experience designing and implementing PLM data models, object hierarchies, workflow configurations, and integration architectures. Experience with complex parts libraries, configuration management strategies, lifecycle processes, and change-management workflows in multi-site or matrix-organization structures.
Migrations and Legacy System Integration
Hands-on experience leading PLM migrations from legacy systems, performing large-scale parts import and data cleanup initiatives, validating data integrity, reconciling duplicate records, and establishing new system baselines. Experience with ERP integration and ECAD system integration within PLM contexts.
Infrastructure and Compute Integration
Experience integrating CAD/PLM systems with compute infrastructure including HPC clusters, GPU workstations, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI/AVD), storage systems, and licensing servers. Understanding of how to provision compute for engineering workloads and manage resource-intensive simulations.
Build-from-Scratch Platform Development
Comfortable working in bootstrapped environments where systems, standards, workflows, and operating models are being established from inception. Experience replacing ad-hoc processes with systematic engineering solutions, building documentation and automation rather than inheriting mature support structures.
Skills
Required
Teamcenter Active Workspace Administration
Configuration, customization, and troubleshooting of Teamcenter Active Workspace user interface, including custom search panels, configuration management, and workflow state machine design.
Teamcenter BMIDE and ITK
Custom business object development using Business Modeler IDE, data model design, and Teamcenter Integration Toolkit (ITK) programming for system extensions and integrations.
Teamcenter API Development (SOA/REST)
Integration development using Teamcenter SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and REST APIs, including authentication, data serialization, error handling, and performance optimization.
NX Open Application Development
NX Open API programming for automation, custom tools, menu extensions, and workflow enhancements. Knowledge of both NX Open and NX Customize capability.
NX Configuration and Customization
NX managed mode setup, customer defaults configuration, template creation, PDM integration, and licensing configuration for enterprise deployments.
Python Scripting
Advanced Python development for workflow automation, system integration, data processing, and tool development. Experience with libraries for API interaction, file handling, and logging.
PowerShell and Bash Scripting
Windows PowerShell and Linux Bash scripting for system administration, deployment automation, configuration management, and cross-platform automation workflows.
BOM and Revision Management
Deep knowledge of bill-of-materials (BOM) structures, multi-level assemblies, revision control schemes, configuration management, and variant handling in PLM systems.
Parts Library and Lifecycle Management
Design and maintenance of parts libraries, product-data hierarchies, lifecycle state workflows, engineering change order processes, and release management procedures.
Product Data Migration
Planning, executing, and validating large-scale product-data migrations, including legacy system imports, data mapping, validation procedures, and post-migration reconciliation.
Preferred
ECAD (Electrical CAD) Integration
Nice to haveExperience integrating electrical design tools (such as Cadence, Altium, or Mentor Graphics) with PLM systems for schematic, PCB, and electrical BOM management.
MCAD and CAE/FEA Knowledge
Nice to haveUnderstanding of mechanical CAD workflows, CAE/FEA (Finite Element Analysis) tools, simulation data management, and how these disciplines integrate with PLM systems.
HPC and GPU Compute Management
Nice to haveExperience provisioning and managing HPC (High-Performance Computing) clusters, GPU compute resources, and job scheduling systems for simulation and analysis workflows.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI/AVD)
Nice to haveKnowledge of VDI platforms, application streaming, virtual workspace configuration, and optimization for compute-intensive engineering workloads.
Engineering Storage and Data Management
Nice to haveExperience designing and managing high-performance storage systems for engineering data, including NAS, SAN, object storage, and considerations for large file management.
Internal Platform and Developer Tooling
Nice to haveExperience building internal developer platforms, self-service infrastructure, engineering dashboards, or other tools that improve engineering productivity and reduce operational overhead.
ERP Integration
Nice to haveExperience integrating PLM systems with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, particularly around parts, BOMs, manufacturing data, and supply-chain information flows.
Hardware Development Domain Expertise
Nice to haveDeep industry experience in consumer devices, robotics, automotive, aerospace, or advanced manufacturing environments with complex hardware-development processes.
Cloud Infrastructure and Automation
Nice to haveFamiliarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), infrastructure-as-code tools, containerization, and deployment automation relevant to engineering applications.
Database Design and SQL
Nice to haveSQL proficiency and understanding of relational database design, query optimization, and data integrity principles as they relate to product-data management.
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 257,000 – 285,000
Equity·Stock options
Full posting
Original listing.
About the Team
The Consumer Devices team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world. We work at the intersection of custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, cloud services, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and product design to deliver reliable, production-ready devices at scale.
Within Consumer Devices, Hardware Engineering eXperience, or HEX, is a new bootstrapped team building the environments, applications, compute, product-data systems, and workflows that let hardware engineers do their work without needing to troubleshoot the machinery underneath.
HEX owns virtual engineering environments, HPC/GPU compute, storage, networking, licensing, MCAD/ECAD/CAE applications, PLM, product data, automation, validation, and support as one connected system.
About the Role
As a Staff PLM & Engineering Applications Engineer, you will be one of the first technical builders of HEX and the primary counterpart to the HEX lead.
You will own the engineering-application and product-data side of the hardware engineering experience, with an initial focus on NX, Teamcenter, licensing, parts import, integrations, packaging, validation, and user workflows.
This is not a traditional Teamcenter administration role and not a Corporate IT application-support role. You will take complex, fragile workflows and turn them into reliable engineering systems.
This role is highly hands-on and systems-oriented. You will not inherit a mature environment and support queue. You will help build a fresh one, replacing manual setup guides, tribal knowledge, repeated support issues, and team handoffs with tested automation and reliable workflows.
In This Role, You Will
Own the technical architecture, deployment, configuration, integration, validation, and long-term operation of NX and Teamcenter.
Build reliable workflows for parts import, product-data migration, metadata quality, BOMs, revisions, lifecycle states, and release processes.
Replace manual setup documentation with automated installation, configuration, validation, diagnostics, and recovery workflows.
Build tooling around NX, Teamcenter, MCAD, ECAD, CAE, plugins, licenses, and engineering environments.
Define and validate the golden path for hardware engineers: access, open, design, save, retrieve, release, simulate, and get help.
Partner with mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, simulation, manufacturing, systems, and product-design teams to understand where workflows break.
Work with Compute & Infrastructure-focused HEX Engineers so applications, product data, storage, VDI, HPC, and licenses feel like one coherent system.
Partner with contractors and vendors while keeping architecture, requirements, validation, acceptance, and long-term ownership inside HEX.
Build health checks, regression tests, observability, diagnostics, and support tooling that make failures easy to detect and recover from.
Help establish the technical standards, operating model, and engineering culture for the growing HEX organization.
You Might Thrive in This Role If You
Have deep hands-on experience with Teamcenter, NX, PLM systems, and CAD workflows in a hardware product-development environment.
Have owned PLM architecture, data models, integrations, migrations, parts imports, release workflows, and engineering application platforms.
Can write automation in Python, PowerShell, Bash, and similar tools.
Have experience with packaging, deployment, licensing, validation, and application integrations.
Understand parts, revisions, BOMs, configurations, lifecycle states, and change workflows.
Can debug across applications, infrastructure, licenses, VDI, networking, storage, compute, and product data.
Prefer building durable tooling and automation instead of managing ticket queues.
See a four-page setup guide and immediately want to replace it with a tested installer.
Are comfortable in a new bootstrapped team where the environment, standards, workflows, and operating model are still being built.
Can work directly with engineers, understand their pain, and turn repeated problems into reliable systems.
Minimum Qualifications
Experience with Teamcenter Active Workspace, BMIDE, ITK, SOA/REST, and Teamcenter customization.
Experience with NX Open, managed mode, customer defaults, templates, licensing, packaging, and upgrades.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with PLM migrations, legacy part imports, data cleanup, ERP integrations, and ECAD integrations.
Experience with MCAD, ECAD, CAE/FEA, HPC, VDI/AVD, GPU workstations, and engineering storage.
Experience building internal platforms, developer tooling, infrastructure automation, and self-service systems.
Experience in complex hardware-development environments, including consumer devices, robotics, automotive, aerospace, or embedded systems.
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 OpenAI’s 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 information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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