Physical Network & Structured Cabling Engineer

About the Team

OpenAI is on a bold mission to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure. We are seeking a Data Center Network and Structured Cabling Engineer with 10+ years of experience in designing and implementing optimized network and structured cabling solutions at large data centers buildings and data center campuses.

The Data Center Engineering team is central to this mission defining infrastructure strategy, driving technical innovation, working with research to set performance benchmarks, and developing reference designs that enable rapid, scalable global deployment.

As part of this team, you will help design and deliver next-generation data center infrastructure optimized for AI workloads. You’ll collaborate across research, site selection, design, construction, commissioning, hardware engineering, deployment, operations, and global partners to bring OpenAI’s infrastructure vision to life.

Role Summary

As a Physical Network & Structured Cabling Engineer, you will own the design, implementation, and quality assurance of structured cabling and physical network infrastructure across OpenAI’s global data center footprint. This role bridges design, construction, and operations, ensuring that every layer of our physical networking from fiber trunks to copper patching meets the highest standards of performance, reliability, and scalability.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and specify physical network infrastructure across data center buildings and campuses, including fiber and copper cabling, network rooms, rack layouts, cable trays, and duct bank pathways. Coordinate with other engineering disciplines to ensure network infrastructure space, power, cooling, and operational requirements are incorporated into the overall design
• Develop standards, reference designs, and installation guidelines for structured cabling and physical network deployments.
• Translate logical network architectures and hardware connectivity requirements into scalable physical designs, including fiber topology, port connectivity, patching, redundancy, and capacity planning, in partnership with network engineering and operations teams.
• Provide technical direction to design consultants, cabling vendors, and installation contractors, resolving scope gaps and ensuring designs are constructible and meet network requirements.
• Define installation quality and acceptance criteria, and oversee inspection, testing, commissioning, and turnover of structured cabling systems.
• Lead physical network design reviews, coordinate clash detection and resolution with other disciplines, and conduct site inspections to verify installation quality and conformance with design and operational requirements.
• Troubleshoot and resolve issues during build, commissioning, and handover phases to ensure network readiness.
• Develop and maintain physical network documentation, including design requirements, drawings, port maps, cable schedules, bills of materials, labeling standards, and as-built records.
• Provide feedback to design and operations teams to drive continuous improvement of physical network standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Telecommunications, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience designing and delivering physical network infrastructure and structured cabling systems for large-scale data centers, including responsibility for design decisions, construction coordination, and operational readiness.
• Strong understanding of data center network topologies and high-speed optical connectivity, including transceivers, fiber types, breakout configurations, connector and polarity schemes, and optical loss budgets.
• Expertise in industry standards such as ANSI/TIA, BICSI and other relevant structured cabling guidelines.
• Proven ability to coordinate with cross-functional teams and external vendors on large-scale projects.
• Strong skills in reviewing and interpreting technical drawings, cable schedules, and documentation management.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Willingness to travel frequently to global data center sites.

Preferred Skills

• Master’s degree in Engineering, or relevant certifications such as BICSI, RCDD, or equivalent.
• Experience with hyperscale cloud, AI, or high-performance computing environments.
• Proficiency in 2D and 3D engineering tools (e.g., CAD, Revit) for infrastructure design and clash detection analysis.
• Experience with structured connectivity data and automation for generating and validating port maps, cable schedules, bills of materials, and labels.
• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills for physical layer systems and issues.

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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