Camera ISP Software Engineer, Consumer Devices Job at OpenAI in Los Angeles

Camera ISP Software Engineer, Consumer Devices Software - San Francisco
About the Team The Consumer Products team at OpenAI builds and ships end-to-end hardware and software experiences that bring frontier AI into the physical world. We work across industrial design, hardware engineering, embedded systems, and AI research to create category-defining consumer devices that feel intuitive, reliable, and deeply integrated with OpenAI’s models.
Within this organization, the Camera team is responsible for delivering robust, production-ready imaging systems that operate under real-world constraints such as motion, power, latency, and manufacturing variation. Our work spans early silicon and board bring-up through mass production, and directly supports both user-facing experiences and on-device perception for AI-driven features.
We operate as a small, highly technical team with deep ownership, close cross-functional collaboration, and a strong bias toward shipping high-quality products rather than incremental demos.
About the Role As a Camera ISP Software Engineer, you will own end-to-end ISP bring-up and tuning across prototype and production hardware. You’ll work across software tuning and hardware-accelerated pipelines to deliver stable, high-quality imaging under real-world constraints such as motion, power, and manufacturing variation.
This role is ideal for engineers who thrive in ambiguous early-stage environments, enjoy deep technical ownership, and take pride in shipping production-grade imaging systems.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of four days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will: Own end-to-end ISP tuning and bring-up, from early prototypes through production hardware.
Tune core 3A and image-quality blocks including AE, AWB, AF, noise reduction (spatial and temporal), sharpening, tone mapping, color correction, HDR/WDR, flicker mitigation, lens shading, defect pixel correction, and related ISP stages.
Build repeatable capture and evaluation workflows, combining controlled lab sweeps with real-world validation.
Validate robustness across sensor, module, and manufacturing variation with clear, defensible success criteria.
Deliver production-grade tuning artifacts, including versioned tuning packs, parameter manifests, change logs, and curated RAW and processed datasets with supporting documentation.
Partner closely with camera firmware, systems, and hardware teams to debug pipelines, configure sensors, and resolve board-level and silicon-level issues as designs evolve.
You might thrive in this role if you: Deep experience shipping ISP tuning for embedded or mobile camera products, from bring-up through production.
Strong fundamentals across 3A (AE/AWB/AF), noise modeling, sharpening and detail trade-offs, tone mapping, and color pipelines.
Proven ability to run data-driven tuning loops, including repeatable capture, rigorous evaluation, and disciplined versioning of tuning artifacts.
Hands‑on experience debugging end-to-end camera pipelines on real hardware, including RAW capture, processed outputs, and hardware‑accelerated paths.
Ability to collaborate cross‑functionally and translate system‑level constraints (power, latency, motion, reliability) into concrete tuning decisions and validation plans.
Preferred Qualifications Experience with common mobile or embedded SoC camera stacks and vendor frameworks.
Experience tuning imaging pipelines explicitly for downstream machine-learning consumers, with iteration driven by model feedback.
Experience designing motion‑aware temporal imaging strategies that remain stable under rapid device or scene motion.
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.
OpenAI’s affirmative action and equal employment opportunity policy statement is available at https://openai.com/aei/.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records may be considered for employment consistent with applicable laws. For US-based candidates, relevant ordinance details apply.
To notify OpenAI you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
Compensation $293K – $325K + Offers Equity

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In Summary: Camera ISP Software Engineer is responsible for delivering robust, production-ready imaging systems that operate under real-world constraints such as motion, power, latency, and manufacturing variation . The Consumer Products team at OpenAI builds and ships end-to-end hardware and software experiences that bring frontier AI into the physical world .

En Español:

El equipo de productos del consumidor en OpenAI construye y entrega experiencias de hardware y software de extremo a extremo que traen la inteligencia artificial fronteriza al mundo físico. Trabajamos en diseño industrial, ingeniería de hardware, sistemas incrustados e investigación de AI para crear dispositivos de consumo definidos por categorías que se sientan intuitivos, confiables y profundamente integrados con los modelos de OpenAI. Dentro de esta organización, el equipo de cámara es responsable de entregar robustos sistemas de imagen listos para producción que operan bajo restricciones reales como movimiento, potencia, latencia y variación de fabricación. Nuestro trabajo abarca el silicio temprano y el uso de placa a través de la producción masiva, y apoya directamente tanto las experiencias frente al usuario como la percepción sobre el dispositivo para características impulsadas. Como un pequeño equipo técnico con una gran propiedad, cercana funcionalidad y una mayor colaboración entre los proveedores de tecnología avanzada, somos responsables de desarrollar un prototipado más rápido en cuanto al desarrollo de productos de alta calidad. Trabajará a través de tuning de software y tuberías aceleradas por hardware para ofrecer imágenes estables y de alta calidad bajo restricciones del mundo real como movimiento, potencia y variación de fabricación. Este papel es ideal para los ingenieros que prosperan en ambiguos entornos tempranos, disfrutan de una profunda propiedad técnica y se enorgullecen de enviar sistemas de imagen de grado de producción. Utilizamos un modelo de trabajo híbrido de cuatro días por semana en la oficina y ofrecemos asistencia para reubicar a los nuevos empleados. En este papel, usted: Construirá el afinación y puesta en marcha del ISP de extremo a extremo, desde los primeros prototipos hasta el hardware de producción. Tune core 3A y bloques de calidad de imagen incluyendo AE, AWB, AF, reducción de ruido (espacial y temporal), afilado, mapeo de tono, corrección de color, HDR/WDR, mitigación de parpadeos, sombreado de lentes, defecto pixel debugging, y etapas relacionadas con ISP. Construye flujos de trabajo de captura e evaluación de imágenes constantes, combinando barridos controlados con validación real. Experiencia de las decisiones sobre robustez de capturas, capacidad de captación y latencia, éxito defendible. Somos un empleador de igualdad de oportunidades y no discriminamos en base a la raza, religión, color, origen nacional, sexo, orientación sexual, edad, estatus veterano, discapacidad, información genética u otra característica legalmente protegida. La declaración de política de acción positiva y igualdad en el empleo OpenAI está disponible en https://openai.com/a/.