Compute Infrastructure Strategy Lead

About the Team
The Industrial Compute team builds and operates the infrastructure behind OpenAIs research and products. We design for scale performance and adaptabilitybridging 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 OpenAIs next generation of systems.

About the Role
Your charter: deliver step-function improvements in cost capability capacity reliability and time-to-ready across OpenAIs infrastructure and compute platform. Youll take on high-leverage initiatives spanning compute storage networking and systemscut through complexity quickly pinpoint leverage points make clear calls and drive the changes needed to unlock scale. Youll work fluidly across teamsengineering capacity planning research infra product finance and business developmentto 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.

In this role you will:

• 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 approachesusing bounded pilots when usefulwhile balancing total cost performance and operability.

• Collaborate with engineering to incubate and execute on the technical decisions that unlock scale.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have deep technical experience (infrastructure / systems engineering TPM or product) and move comfortably between system detail and program execution.

• Have led ambiguous cross-functional infrastructure work to tangible outcomes without waiting for perfect information.

• Communicate clearly align partners and make sound calls on cost performance and operability.

• Prefer measured proofs and execution over slideware and enjoy switching between strategy and hands-on work to fully own projects end-end.

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.

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 addition job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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