Audio Software Engineer, Consumer Devices

OpenAI · San Francisco

About the Team

The Consumer Products team at OpenAI builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world. We operate at the intersection of embedded systems, sensing, and machine learning to deliver intuitive, high-quality user experiences.

Audio is a critical modality for these experiences. Our team develops the software systems that power real-time audio input and output, enabling seamless interaction between users and AI. We work closely with hardware, firmware, and product teams to ensure audio systems are performant, reliable, and production-ready.

About the Role

We are seeking an Audio Software Engineer to design and build advanced audio software systems for real-time, AI-driven applications. In this role, you will develop embedded audio pipelines for both input and output, ensuring high-quality capture, processing, and playback across devices.

You will work across system layers, building scalable audio architectures and collaborating closely with cross-functional teams to integrate audio seamlessly into broader product experiences.

This role is based onsite, with an expectation of 4 days per week in the office to enable close collaboration with hardware, firmware, and cross-functional teams.

In this role, you will:

  • Design and implement real-time audio input and output pipelines for embedded systems

  • Develop APIs and SPIs to expose and manage audio capabilities across the system

  • Coordinate audio processing with other sensing modalities and system components

  • Optimize audio performance, latency, and reliability for production environments

  • Collaborate with hardware, firmware, and software teams to deliver high-quality audio experiences

You might thrive in this role if you:

  • Have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field

  • Are highly proficient in C/C++ for systems or embedded development

  • Have experience building embedded audio systems or working with DSP frameworks

  • Understand real-time audio system design, architecture, and constraints

  • Are comfortable with multi-threaded programming and synchronization

  • Have a strong foundation in audio DSP fundamentals and algorithms

Bonus Qualifications

  • Experience optimizing software for embedded or resource-constrained environments

  • Proficiency in Python or MATLAB for prototyping and testing

  • Familiarity with audio codecs, streaming protocols, or Bluetooth audio 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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