Graphics Software Engineer - Consumer Devices

OpenAI•San Francisco, CA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Graphics team builds the graphics runtimes and rendering systems that power next-generation user interfaces and visual experiences. We work across rendering pipelines, display composition, and GPU optimization to deliver beautiful, performant, and reliable real-time graphics across devices. Our work spans from early architecture through production, partnering closely with camera, vision, and UX teams to create seamless visual interactions. As a Graphics engineer, you will design, implement, and optimize real-time rendering pipelines and graphics frameworks for 2D and 3D applications. You’ll own the end-to-end display and composition path—covering swapchains, frame pacing, vsync, color/HDR, and zero-copy buffer flow—while driving system reliability and performance at scale. We’re looking for engineers who combine deep technical expertise in rendering and GPU systems with a strong product sense for crafting responsive, high-quality user experiences. 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.

Requirements

Deep experience shipping graphics or high-performance systems on Linux, Android, or iOS devices.
Built or contributed to UI/rendering frameworks.
Familiarity with Vulkan, Metal, or OpenGL ES.
Proficient in C/C++ and modern shading languages.
Understand display pipelines and windowing/compositors (e.g., DRM/KMS, Wayland, SurfaceFlinger/HWC, macOS/iOS render server, IOMobileFramebuffer).
Proven track record shipping real-time rendering features with tight latency, power, and memory constraints.
Fluent with profiling and debugging tools (RenderDoc, Xcode Metal frame debugger, perf/ftrace/Instruments, GDB/LLDB).
Enjoy working closely with designers to balance visual ambition and engineering constraints.

Nice To Haves

Experience with text and 2D stacks (Skia, FreeType/HarfBuzz, CoreGraphics) or vector/raster pipelines.
Familiarity with color management and HDR (ICC color profiles, wide-gamut workflows).
Experience with compute/graphics interop (Vulkan compute, CUDA/OpenCL/Metal) and image processing chains.
Exposure to graphics driver or Mesa stack development, or kernel/media paths.
Experience with robotics, AR/VR, wearables, or other real-time, resource-constrained products.

Responsibilities

Build and evolve graphics runtimes and libraries (text/raster, image pipelines, materials/shaders, scene graph) for app/UI developers.
Design, implement, and optimize real-time rendering pipelines (2D/3D) using Vulkan or OpenGL ES.
Own the display and composition path, including swapchains, frame pacing, vsync, color/HDR, and zero-copy buffer flow.
Establish performance and quality bars through GPU/CPU profiling, frame-time analysis, and optimization for memory, power, and thermal budgets.
Collaborate with camera, vision, and UX teams to enable compositing, effects, and media/compute interoperability.
Drive reliability through robust startup/shutdown, crash capture, graceful GPU resets, and automated graphics tests in CI.