Camera Software Engineer, Consumer Devices

Details

The Consumer Products team builds end-to-end hardware and software systems that bring AI into the physical world, spanning custom silicon, embedded systems, operating systems, and cloud services. The camera stack supports new hardware bring-up, capture pipeline stability, debugging, and reliable production deployment.

As a Camera Firmware Engineer, you will own low-level camera enablement on custom hardware, from early board bring-up through stable production capture. You will develop and maintain firmware and software that makes camera sensors reliable, controllable, and debuggable. This is a hands-on, systems-oriented role involving close hardware interaction, diagnosis of timing and integration issues, and tooling to accelerate iteration across the camera stack.

The role is based in San Francisco, California, and follows a hybrid work model with four days per week in the office.

Responsibilities

• Bring up camera sensors and modules on prototype and production boards, including link stability, sensor control, and correct power, reset, and clock sequencing.
• Develop and maintain low-level camera software, including sensor drivers, board configuration, and camera subsystem integration across hardware revisions.
• Enable and validate capture paths for development and production, including RAW capture for debugging, still capture, and hardware-accelerated video encoding and streaming with stable timestamps and long-duration reliability.
• Implement camera control and repeatability features, including basic 3A exposure loops, manual overrides and locks, and deterministic presets for validation and debugging.
• Build and maintain camera bring-up tooling, including capture scripts, automated sweeps, manifests, and debugging utilities that make issues reproducible and easy to triage.
• Partner with electrical engineering, camera pipeline owners, and systems teams to define interfaces, unblock integration, and maintain camera stack stability as the device evolves.

Requirements

• Deep experience shipping embedded camera systems, including sensor bring-up, driver development, and board-level debugging.
• Strong C/C++ experience with embedded or Linux-based systems, including debugging across kernel and userspace boundaries.
• Hands-on understanding of camera hardware interfaces such as MIPI CSI and sensor control buses.
• Practical experience with power, reset, clocking, and sequencing during hardware bring-up.
• Proven ability to build reliable capture paths and effective debug workflows using reproducible failures and well-scoped fixes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with mobile or embedded SoC camera stacks and vendor frameworks.
• Experience integrating and debugging hardware acceleration blocks adjacent to camera pipelines, such as video encoding and decoding paths.
• Familiarity with building higher-level capture pipelines such as GStreamer on top of low-level camera enablement.

Benefits

• Base salary range of $293,000–$325,000 per year, plus equity and performance-related bonuses for eligible employees.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax FSA, dependent care FSA, and commuter accounts.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Paid time off, company holidays, office closures, and sick or safe time.
• Mental health and wellness support.
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage.
• Annual learning and development stipend.
• Office meals and eligible meal delivery credits.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.
• Additional benefits may include charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.

OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.