Compute Infrastructure Strategy Lead

Details

About the Team

The Industrial Compute team builds and operates the infrastructure behind OpenAI’s research and products. We design for scale, performance, and adaptability — bridging physical and logical layers so frontier workloads run efficiently across a global footprint.

In recent months, this team enabled large scale compute systems, built foundational network infrastructure, partnered with engineering to unlock major compute expansions, and worked with compute, inference, and storage systems engineering to materially lower serving cost while improving performance.

Our mandate spans power, compute, network, manufacturing and assembly, operations, scheduling and orchestration, and the broader ecosystem to enable OpenAI’s next generation of systems.

About the Role

Your charter: deliver step-function improvements in cost, capability, capacity, reliability, and time-to-ready across OpenAI’s infrastructure and compute platform. You’ll take on high-leverage initiatives spanning compute, storage, networking, and systems — cut through complexity quickly, pinpoint leverage points, make clear calls, and drive the changes needed to unlock scale. You’ll work fluidly across teams — engineering, capacity planning, research, infra, product, finance, and business development — to align the technical, operational, and commercial pieces needed to make these bets real.

Some workstreams will be strategic and industry-shifting; others will be tactical so we can ship systems sooner than otherwise possible. Near-term focus may include optimizing storage direction and rollout, improving accelerator utilization, advancing interconnect approaches to lower latency and cost, and accelerating site readiness.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

Responsibilities

• Own cross-stack programs end-to-end: define the problem, design the approach, prove it quickly, and carry the result into production.
• Drive rapid clarity on goals, criteria, risks, metrics for complex technical problems without adding heavy process.
• Work closely with engineering, operations, and (when needed) finance, research, product, and external vendors to align decisions and deliver useful infrastructure at massive scale.
• Own outcomes end-to-end, and move fast to validate approaches — using bounded pilots when useful — while balancing total cost, performance, and operability.
• Collaborate with engineering to incubate and execute on the technical decisions that unlock scale.

Requirements / Qualifications (implicit in description)

• Deep technical experience across infrastructure, systems engineering, TPM, or product, and ability to move comfortably between system detail and program execution.
• Experience leading ambiguous, cross-functional infrastructure work to tangible outcomes without waiting for perfect information.
• Strong ability to communicate, align partners, and make sound calls on cost, performance, and operability.
• Comfortable with both strategy and hands-on execution to fully own projects end-to-end.

Benefits & Compensation

• Compensation tier listed: $393K • Offers Equity.
• Base pay may vary depending on location, knowledge, skills, and experience. Total compensation may include equity and performance-related bonuses.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance; employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts; pre-tax accounts (Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, commuter); 401(k) with employer match.
• Paid parental leave, paid medical and caregiver leave, flexible PTO, paid company holidays, and paid sick/safe time as required by law.
• Mental health and wellness support; employer-paid basic life and disability coverage; annual learning and development stipend; daily meals and meal delivery credits; relocation support for eligible employees; additional taxable fringe benefits.

Other Information

• OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities.
• Background checks will be administered in accordance with applicable law.
• For more details, see OpenAI policies referenced in the original posting.