Head of Applied AI Recruiting

About the Team

At OpenAI our Recruiting team plays a foundational role in advancing our mission: to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We hire and support some of the worlds most exceptional researchers engineers and operational talent. Our technical recruiting group partners with trailblazing teams across Research Engineering Safety Infrastructure and moreidentifying and securing the rare talent needed to develop globally transformative AI systems.

About the Role

Were looking for a bold strategic and deeply technical recruiting leader to own and scale one of the most critical functions at OpenAI. The Applied org are building and deploying OpenAIs most impactful products like ChatGPT and the API platform. These products operate at a massive scale shaping how millions interact with frontier AI every day. . This is not a typical Head of rolethis is a high-ownership leadership position at the intersection of executive recruiting organizational design talent intelligence and long-term team architecture.

Youll manage a growing team of recruiters sourcers and talent partners who support our highest-priority technical domains. This is a deeply strategic and execution-focused role responsible for leading high-stakes searches and enabling long-term recruiting excellence.

While this role reports to our Head of Recruiting it is a critical leadership role that will regularly partner with our most senior technical leaders particularly in our core product groups behind ChatGPT our API and other executives. This role is ideal for someone who has led at scale and is energized by shaping world-class AI-first recruiting strategy in a mission-driven technically rigorous and ultra fast-moving environment.

Youll be responsible for:

• Setting the vision and operating model for Applied recruiting (engineering product data science design security IT and TPM) so the team can deliver predictable monthly hiring targets while remaining flexible to shifting business needs.

• Serving as a strategic partner to VPs of Engineering and Product and their staff translating headcount goals and technical roadmap changes into clear recruiting plans data dashboards and rapid course-corrections.

• Leading and developing recruiting managers and teams elevating performance and building the next layer of leadership bench.

• Embedding AI and agentic solutions into day-to-day workflows piloting new tools measuring ROI and holding the team accountable for innovating with AI to boost speed quality and candidate experience.

• Upleveling sourcing and closing strategies for hard-to-find high-bar technical talent. Leverage creative channels non-traditional pipelines and data-driven negotiation tactics.

• Maintaining an exceptional candidate experience at every stage ensuring processes remain transparent inclusive and aligned with OpenAIs values and operating principles.

• Owning recruiting analytics and capacity forecasting presenting actionable metrics to executives Finance and HRBPs and adjusting resources or processes before bottlenecks emerge.

• Cultivating a high-trust collaborative culture across globally distributed teams working closely with HR Recruiting Operations and Engineering leaders to drive continuous improvement and uphold a principled talent bar.

Were looking for someone with:

• 15 years of progressive recruiting experience with 10 years in leadership roles managing complex and technical hiring domains.

• Experience leading VP-level and executive-level hiring and partnering with C-level leaders.

• Proven success hiring world-class technical talentespecially researchers engineers or infrastructure leadersin the most competitive global talent markets.

• Exceptional communication judgment and presenceyoure someone technical leaders trust.

• Experience building and scaling recruiting teams including managing managers and designing for both present needs and future growth.

• Executive presence and relationship-building skills; youre trusted by leadership and valued as a strategic partner.

• Fluency in technical domains with an ability to credibly engage in talent conversations about AI engineering and research disciplines.

• Data-minded decision-making; you leverage insights and recruiting metrics to inform strategy and measure impact.

• A reputation for operational excellence deep empathy and an ability to balance speed with thoughtfulness.

Workplace & Location

This role is based in our San Francisco HQ and we arent considering remote applications. We offer relocation support to new employees and we use a hybrid work model: three days in the office per week with optional work from home on Thursdays and Fridays.

Our open-plan offices have height-adjustable desks conference rooms phone booths well-stocked kitchens full of snacks and drinks three in-house prepared meals daily a private outdoor space for working in the sun or socializing nap rooms private bike storage and more.

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 OpenAIs Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities and requests can be made via this link.

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At OpenAI we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.