Product Designer, Higher Education

Details

About the Team

OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Education team is focused on making AI safe, useful, and empowering for students, faculty, and institutions.

The team’s work spans core learning experiences, course-based tools, and campus-wide product solutions. It is also exploring how OpenAI’s technology can support colleges and universities, educators, teaching and research, and collaborative learning.

About the Role

OpenAI is looking for a staff-level product designer to shape how students and educators engage with AI and help define emerging higher education experiences. The role spans immediate product needs and ambitious zero-to-one opportunities, including core learning and course experiences and campus-wide tools for teaching, research, and collaboration.

A high craft bar is imperative. The designer will pair exceptional interaction and visual design with deep product thinking, turning complex questions around safety, learning, and institutional needs into experiences that feel clear, trustworthy, and engaging.

This is a highly generative role for someone who can move from early exploration to concrete, high-fidelity product direction. The designer will partner closely with product, engineering, research, safety, policy, and design to establish durable patterns for a space that is still being defined.

Responsibilities

• Establish an exceptionally high standard for craft across higher education experiences.
• Lead end-to-end design for products that help students, faculty, and campus staff use AI safely, confidently, and productively.
• Design clear, trustworthy experiences for learning, course participation, and campus-wide use, including sensitive or high-trust interactions.
• Shape zero-to-one higher education experiences spanning colleges and universities, educators, courses, collaborative work, and builder-style workflows.
• Turn emerging ideas into compelling concepts, prototypes, and high-fidelity product experiences that teams can evaluate and build.
• Partner with research, engineering, product, safety, policy, and design to balance user needs, technical capabilities, and responsible deployment.
• Conduct and apply research with students, faculty, campus staff, institutions, and other relevant users and partners.
• Develop reusable patterns and principles that create coherence across core learning, course, and campus-wide products as the area grows.

Requirements

• Exceptional interaction and visual design craft, with a motivation to raise the quality of design across OpenAI.
• A highly generative approach to design, including broad exploration, deep iteration, and the ability to turn ideas into concrete, polished product direction.
• Strong product and systems thinking.
• Experience leading substantial, ambiguous, or zero-to-one product areas and shaping both vision and execution.
• Ability to design thoughtful experiences for sensitive, high-trust, or safety-critical contexts.
• Understanding of how to create engaging and intuitive products without compromising safety or clarity.
• Ability to navigate the needs of multiple audiences, including students, faculty, campus staff, administrators, and institutional partners.
• Clear communication and the ability to build alignment across disciplines while remaining hands-on throughout the product-development process.
• Interest in defining how AI can support learning while serving higher education communities responsibly.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The company pushes the boundaries of AI system capabilities and seeks to safely deploy them through its products.

OpenAI is an equal opportunity employer and does 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. Background checks and reasonable accommodation processes apply in accordance with applicable law.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• Pre-tax accounts for health, dependent care, and commuter expenses.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match.
• Paid parental, medical, and caregiver leave.
• Paid time off, paid company holidays, office closures, and paid sick or 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 in offices and eligible meal delivery credits.
• Relocation support for eligible employees.
• Additional taxable fringe benefits may also be provided.

Base pay may vary depending on market location, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and other individualized factors. Total compensation also includes equity and performance-related bonuses for eligible employees.