Research Program Manager, Governance

Details

OpenAI’s Governance team helps shape how the company responsibly develops and deploys increasingly capable AI. The team brings together technical evidence, policy, and operational perspectives to address emerging risks, resolve difficult questions, and support well-founded decisions. Its work includes improving governance practices, supporting oversight, developing assessments and recommendations, and ensuring decisions lead to action.

The role focuses on shaping governance reviews, connecting ideas and evidence across teams, and developing practical recommendations. Depending on experience and team needs, the work may focus on safety advisory and board-level oversight, deployment governance, or standards and strategic partner commitments.

Responsibilities

• Bring together technical, policy, and operational inputs to develop assessments, recommendations, and decision materials for governance bodies and senior leaders.
• Work through emerging or ambiguous questions, test assumptions, identify gaps or conflicting evidence, and determine what additional analysis or decisions are needed.
• Engage with research, evaluations, safeguards, and risk assessments while working with relevant experts to understand the evidence and remaining uncertainty.
• Partner with governance-body chairs, technical leaders, and stakeholders to shape substantive reviews, frame important questions, and communicate conclusions clearly.
• Translate feedback, recommendations, and decisions into concrete work with accountable owners, milestones, dependencies, and completion criteria.
• Drive work across teams, resolve blockers, surface trade-offs, and escalate disagreements or resource gaps when needed.
• Help teams understand applicable governance processes, integrate reviews into research and deployment plans, and identify changes requiring further consideration.
• Maintain clear records of decisions, rationale, conditions, commitments, exceptions, and unresolved questions.
• Improve governance practices, standards, and guidance as capabilities, evidence, and circumstances evolve.
• Build and refine practical tools, operating cadences, and sources of truth that improve the quality and pace of the work.
• Develop trusted relationships across Research, Safety Systems, Preparedness, Security, Legal, Product, leadership, and relevant external partners.

Requirements

• Experience leading complex, cross-functional work in a research, technology, policy, safety, security, governance, or related environment.
• Initiative and the ability to move quickly and find practical solutions when ownership, requirements, or the path to an answer are unclear.
• Intellectual curiosity and the ability to learn unfamiliar subjects, ask sharp questions, test arguments, and recognize when deeper expertise is needed.
• Ability to synthesize complicated or conflicting information without losing important distinctions, limitations, or uncertainty.
• Clear and precise writing, particularly when explaining difficult issues and recommendations to senior decision-makers.
• Strong program-management fundamentals and a record of turning ambiguous requests into completed work.
• Sound judgment in sensitive situations, constructive handling of disagreement, and the ability to determine when to act independently or seek a decision.
• Willingness to try new approaches, learn from feedback, and change direction when evidence changes.
• Ability to build useful structure without adding unnecessary process.
• Commitment to the responsible development and deployment of increasingly capable AI systems.

Helpful Experience

• Research program management or strategy and operations in a technically complex organization.
• AI safety, preparedness, model evaluations, cybersecurity, or technical risk management.
• Advisory committees, board-facing work, executive decision support, or other consequential reviews.
• Translating policies, standards, or governance decisions into practical requirements and programs.
• Strategic partnerships or sensitive deployment contexts.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The company is an equal opportunity employer and provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Background checks are administered in accordance with applicable law.

Benefits

• Base salary of $239,000–$328,000 per year, plus equity.
• Performance-related bonuses for eligible employees.
• 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, 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 benefits may include charitable donation matching and wellness stipends.