Director, People Operations

About the Team

OpenAI’s People team is committed to hiring, engaging, and supporting world-class talent to help safely build and deploy universally beneficial Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The People Operations team is responsible for the systems, data, and operational rigor that underpin every stage of the employee lifecycle. Our work sits at the intersection of employee experience, regulatory compliance, and business velocity — ensuring that as OpenAI scales rapidly and globally, our foundations remain accurate, auditable, and human-centered.

This is a high-trust, high-impact function. We partner closely with Finance, Legal, IT, Security, and the broader People team to support growth in a dynamic environment with significant internal and external scrutiny. Operational excellence here is not about process for process’s sake — it is about building durable infrastructure that enables fairness, transparency, and responsible scale.

About the Role

As Director of People Operations, you will own the core operational infrastructure that enables OpenAI to scale responsibly. This role serves as the operational backbone of the People function, with accountability for data integrity, operational controls, and audit readiness across the systems that support a complex, global workforce.

You will lead a team responsible for the end-to-end employee lifecycle, from onboarding through offboarding, ensuring our people systems and processes are accurate, resilient, and built to scale. In close partnership with Employment Legal and the People Compliance team, you will translate policy and regulatory requirements into scalable, well-controlled operational processes. This role operates with high visibility and close partnership with senior leaders across Finance, Legal, IT, and People, including ownership of SOX-relevant controls and workforce data relied upon by executive leadership, auditors, and the Board.

Success in this role requires exceptional judgment, comfort operating in ambiguity, and the ability to balance rigor with empathy at scale. This is not a steady-state operations role — it is a build-and-scale role in a fast-moving, high-stakes environment.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Own and continuously improve People Operations across the full employee lifecycle, ensuring scalable, compliant, and employee-centered processes globally.

• Lead and develop a high-performing People Operations team, setting clear standards, driving accountability, and building strong operational judgment.

• Own the integrity of employee data end-to-end, proactively identifying gaps, risks, and failure points before they impact compliance, reporting, or employee trust.

• Design, document, and rigorously test critical People processes and internal controls, with a strong focus on SOX readiness, auditability, and long-term scalability.

• Serve as a senior operational partner to Finance, Legal, IT, Security, and the broader People leadership team, translating business needs into durable people infrastructure.

• Oversee HR systems and vendors (e.g., HRIS, payroll, benefits administration), ensuring they meet the needs of a rapidly growing, global organization.

• Lead operational readiness for growth events such as new entities, new geographies, workforce changes, and evolving regulatory requirements.

• Establish clear operating rhythms, metrics, and reporting to surface risks, trends, and opportunities early.

• Act as a steady, trusted leader during moments of operational stress, change, or ambiguity.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 12+ years of experience in People Operations or related functions, including leadership of complex, global teams.

• Deep experience designing and operating scalable People processes and systems in high-growth environments.

• Strong understanding of HR operational controls, audit readiness, and compliance-adjacent requirements, with demonstrated experience partnering closely with People Compliance and Legal; SOX experience strongly preferred.

• Proven ability to partner cross-functionally with Finance, Legal, IT, and Security on high-stakes initiatives.

• Track record of building teams, setting high standards, and developing strong operators.

• Excellent judgment, attention to detail, and ability to manage competing priorities without losing sight of the bigger picture.

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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