Physical Security Systems Design Engineer

About the Team

The Physical Security Engineering team designs, deploys, and sustains the systems that protect OpenAI’s people, facilities, and critical infrastructure. We work across global office campuses, warehouses, labs and data centers, partnering with IT, Facilities, Construction, and Security Operations to ensure all environments meet stringent safety, reliability, and compliance requirements.

Our team owns security architecture from early site due-diligence through construction, commissioning, and long-term lifecycle management.

About the Role
As a Physical Security Systems Design Engineer, you will lead the design and documentation of physical security systems for commercial offices, warehouses, labs and data centers across OpenAI’s global real estate portfolio. You will translate threat models, regulatory requirements, and operational needs into buildable, standards-based security designs executed by top-tier global integrators.

This role sits at the intersection of architecture, engineering, construction, and security operations, requiring both technical depth and real-world build experience.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA and is also open to fully remote candidates within the United States.

For employees located in the Bay Area, we offer the option to work from our San Francisco office. For remote employees, we support distributed work with strong collaboration tools, clear documentation, and regular on-site engagement.

This role includes site travel to support the needs of the business, including visits to offices, warehouses, labs and data centers for design reviews, construction support, system commissioning, and operational readiness.

Typical travel is expected to range between 10–25%, depending on project load and deployment schedules. This may include domestic and international travel to support OpenAI’s global footprint.

Relocation assistance is available for candidates who choose to move to the Bay Area.

In this role, you will:

• Own physical security system designs for new construction and retrofit projects across offices, warehouses, labs and data centers

• Produce security floor plans, device layouts, riser diagrams, and system schematics for access control, video surveillance, intrusion detection, and perimeter protection

• Develop and maintain security design standards, templates, and reference architectures

• Translate risk assessments, compliance requirements, and threat models into technical security solutions

• Attend design reviews with architects, MEP engineers, construction managers, and security operations

• Review RFPs, scopes of work, and technical specifications for global security integrators and vendors

• Review shop drawings, submittals, and as-built documentation for technical accuracy and compliance

• Support on-site commissioning, testing, and turnover to operations teams

• Act as a technical authority for access control, video management, identity, and physical security infrastructure

You may be a fit for this role if you have:

• Have 7+ years of experience designing and deploying physical security systems for commercial offices, warehouses, labs or data centers

• Have experience with top-tier global physical security integrators

• Are fluent in security drawings, floorplans, elevations, and construction documentation

• Understand multi-trade coordination including low-voltage, networking, power, doors & hardware, and MEP systems

• Have deep technical knowledge of:

• Access control systems (ACS)

• Video management systems (VMS)

• Cameras, readers, control panels, and field hardware

• Credentials, identity, and badging workflows

• Networked and cloud-connected security architectures

• Can balance risk, cost, constructability, and operational usability

• Are comfortable owning designs from concept through live operations

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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