Supply Chain Operations Program Manager, AI Infrastructure

OpenAI

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Research Services 👥 201 employees 📍 San Francisco, CA, US Est. 2015

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with…

Job Overview

We are seeking a Operations Program Manager (OPM) to serve as the single-threaded operational leader for new hardware introductions (NPI) and production ramps across OpenAI’s AI infrastructure systems.

This role combines hands-on execution with strategic ownership. You will be responsible for defining the operating model, aligning cross-functional stakeholders, setting the critical path, making informed tradeoffs, escalating decisively, and ensuring hardware programs deliver on schedule, quality, cost, and scalability.

Success in this role requires comfort operating in ambiguity, influencing without authority, and driving alignment across internal teams and external partners—while keeping eyes firmly on long-term system scalability and repeatability.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic & Leadership Ownership: Act as the single-threaded owner for operational readiness across NPI and ramp, accountable for outcomes from early bring-up through sustained production


• Translate OpenAI’s infrastructure strategy and engineering objectives into clear operating plans, execution priorities, and decision frameworks


• Drive alignment across Engineering, Operations, Strategic Sourcing, Finance, Capacity Planning, and Executive stakeholders by framing tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations


• Proactively identify inflection points where decisions or investments are required to protect long-term scale, reliability, or cost targets


• Influence operational strategy with manufacturing partners by setting expectations on execution rigor, accountability, and continuous improvement


• Program Execution & Operational Excellence: Drive overall NPI build readiness, including material accountability, manufacturing and test readiness, product data availability, factory infrastructure, and qualification plans


• Lead transition activities from NPI to mass production, partnering closely with Sustaining Operations teams to ensure seamless ownership transfer


• Translate engineering requirements into actionable, factory-ready plans with tier-1 manufacturing and integration partners


• Lead cross-functional build and debug cadences; ensure issues are clearly owned, aggressively driven, and formally closed with root cause and prevention


• Drive factory and deployment ramp readiness, including throughput, site readiness, yield targets, quality controls, and reliability gates


• Own end-to-end risk management—identification, mitigation planning, escalation, and executive-level communication


• Surface systemic bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or failure modes; propose and implement durable solutions across process, tooling, and organizational interfaces


• Build, formalize, and scale repeatable operating mechanisms that enable predictable, high-velocity hardware development


• Systems, Process & Partner Leadership: Define requirements for operational systems (e.g., PLM enablement), and partner with internal teams to implement, test, and operationalize them


• Establish clear scopes, roles, and responsibilities across internal teams and external partners to ensure clean execution boundaries


• Build strong, trust-based relationships with contract manufacturers, OEMs, and integrators—driving accountability, performance, and transparency


• Support onsite factory builds and field deployments as needed (domestic and international travel)

About the Team

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops silicon and system-level solutions designed for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. The team is responsible for building the next generation of AI-native silicon while working closely with software and research partners to co-design hardware tightly integrated with AI models. In addition to delivering production-grade silicon for OpenAI’s supercomputing infrastructure, the team also creates custom design tools and methodologies that accelerate innovation and enable hardware optimized specifically for AI.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
401(k) retirement plan with employer match
Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
Mental health and wellness support
Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
Relocation support for eligible employees
Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.