Early-Stage Ecosystem (IC)

About the Team:

OpenAIs Early-Stage Ecosystem team identifies and wins the next generation of startups that will matter most.

About the Role:

As an IC Ecosystem Lead you will own a small high-leverage portfolio of relationships quarterly (515) with exceptional founders and technical teams - often before the market fully recognizes them. Your work will shape OpenAIs reputation in the ecosystem accelerate breakthrough partner outcomes and create a durable pipeline of applied and research collaborations that benefit startups and help inform our product and model roadmap.

This is a high-taste high-agency role at the intersection of founder trust technical depth and cross-functional execution. Youll operate closely with research product and go-to-market teams as well as internal evaluation and model-improvement partners - turning startup needs into concrete technical engagements evaluation work and strategic opportunities.

What Youll Do:

Own a portfolio of high-taste startup relationships

• Manage 515 key startup partnerships at any time (mix of new bets series-a folks).

• Build deep founder trust through fast thoughtful support and clear value creation.

• Identify the correct emerging companies each quarter - especially those likely to become major partners within 24 months.

• Convert portfolio startups into high-touch strategic engagements by surfacing high-value evaluation opportunities and managing them end-to-end.

Shape OpenAIs early-stage perception and founder preference

• Identify the correct emerging companies each quarter - especially those likely to become major partners within 24 months.

• Create and host high-quality founder gatherings with strong attendance bars.

• Work with Comms and Developer Experience to produce technical content (blogs short-form talks) that resonates with the next generation of founders.

• Build niche technical micro-communities around key developer/founder interests.

Drive evals and research-adjacent engagements

• Partner with solutions and evaluation teams to translate real-world product usage into actionable improvements.

Execute creative strategic/commercial work

• Support strategic recruiting and other high-conviction cross-functional opportunities as needed.

• Collaborate with co-sell / co-market motions when it accelerates top partners.

• Act as a sharp internal signal: whats real in the ecosystem whats buzz.

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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