Civil, Structural & Architectural Engineer - Stargate

About the Team:

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is embarking on a journey to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Data Center Engineering team is central to this mission, setting the core infra strategy and implementing this vision. From site selection to the design and delivery process, this team sits at the intersection of commercial, technical, strategy, and operations, interacting with teams and executives inside and outside of OpenAI.

About the Role:

We’re seeking a seasoned engineer to lead the civil, structural, architectural (CSA) disciplines and engineering program management for OpenAI’s global data center projects. This role will directly drive project design and delivery while shaping the long-term vision, team, and processes for the CSA disciplines and infrastructure expansion. The CSA engineer will develop reference designs, campus and building test fits, and specifications for next-generation data centers, coordinating closely with internal teams and global partners across research, design, construction, hardware, and operations. Ideal candidates will have deep experience designing large-scale data center and manufacturing facilities (greenfield and brownfield), building TCO models, managing design and construction documents and leading high-impact infrastructure programs from concept through commissioning.

You Might Thrive in this Role if You:

• Oversee CSA engineering and data center campus design across all phases, ensuring performance, reliability, and alignment with best practices.

• Drive the development of design documents, operational procedures, traffic patterns, commissioning workflows, and integration of critical systems in all domains power, cooling, network cabling, fire suppression,

• Lead the design and buildout of R&D labs and support selection of engineering software tools (CAD, CFD, PLM, PDM, etc.).

• Manage relationships with design partners, equipment vendors, and contractors.

• Provide technical direction across cross-functional teams and ensure compliance with safety standards, codes, and regulations.

Qualifications:

• 20+ years of experience in data center design, delivery, and operations, including CSA and MEP systems.

• Proven leadership in executing large-scale, complex infrastructure projects on time and within budget.

• Deep technical expertise in data center systems and critical infrastructure components.

• Strong experience with R&D facility development, equipment selection, and vendor coordination.

• Skilled in software/tool selection for engineering design and project management.

• Ability to navigate regulatory environments and ensure compliance with design standards.

• Demonstrated success leading global, multidisciplinary teams and managing executive-level communication.

• Excellent ability to create structure in ambiguous environments and scale processes.

• Familiarity with sustainable and energy-efficient data center design.

• Bachelor’s degree in CSA engineering or related field (advanced degree preferred); PE license is a plus.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in global, matrixed organizations with multi-site data center operations.

• Expertise in supply chain management, equipment and material logistics, and large-scale vendor negotiations.

• Familiarity with both greenfield and brownfield data center developments.

• Prior ownership of data center TCO modeling, document management, and service coordination.

• Experience deploying reference designs for hyperscalers or high-density compute infrastructure.

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.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.