Strategic Operations Lead, User Safety & Risk Operations

OpenAI, Inc.

Job Overview

Location

San Francisco

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Lead strategic operational builds from ambiguous problem statements to implemented operating models, defining scope, owners, workflows, milestones, risks, and success measures for user safety and risk initiatives.
• Build launch and early-life operating models for complex partner deployments, including monitoring cadence, escalation paths, ownership maps, reporting expectations, and follow-up mechanisms to ensure timely response to safety signals.
• Translate technical, policy, safety, privacy, and operational constraints into practical, executable workflows that teams can reliably implement across Product, Engineering, Legal, Policy, Support, and Partnerships.
• Define how user safety and risk signals are monitored, reviewed, packaged, escalated, and tracked through resolution, ensuring clear ownership and accountability across internal and external teams.
• Partner with senior leaders across User Safety & Risk Operations and cross-functional teams to translate business, product, safety, and operational needs into clear, actionable execution plans.
• Use data and operational signals to assess workflow health, identify capacity needs, detect bottlenecks, uncover quality gaps, and mitigate risks in real-time safety operations.
• Identify opportunities to reduce operational burden and improve consistency through AI tools, automation, lightweight systems, or improved workflows, leveraging AI fluency to drive efficiency.
• Keep operating models current as data pipelines, tooling, dashboards, partner processes, and ownership structures evolve over time, ensuring durability and scalability of safety systems.
• Design and implement documentation, reporting frameworks, and execution rhythms that standardize processes and enable consistent decision-making across distributed teams.
• Operate effectively in high-ambiguity environments with incomplete data, changing policies, or evolving tooling, maintaining organization and calm while driving progress.
• Be implementation-oriented, building workflows and systems—not just defining strategy—using resourceful, tool-agnostic approaches including AI-assisted development, low-code/no-code platforms, SQL, spreadsheets, and process design.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and technical operations teams to ask the right technical questions and translate constraints into operational requirements.
• Sequence initiatives pragmatically, identifying what must be ready for launch, what can be monitored before action, and what needs to transition into a durable, long-term operating model.
• Maintain awareness of emerging AI deployment models and their impact on safety signals, response ownership, and user-impacting risk detection and resolution pathways.
• Proactively identify gaps in tooling, data access, or policy thresholds and develop lightweight solutions to bridge them without waiting for full infrastructure investment.

🎯 Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in operations, strategy and operations, product operations, technical program management, trust and safety operations, risk operations, implementation, or management consulting.
• Track record of leading complex, ambiguous work from problem framing through execution with measurable outcomes.
• Strong technical fluency, including ability to reason through data flows, system ownership, logs, dashboards, tooling gaps, and failure modes.
• Strong data literacy with hands-on experience using SQL, spreadsheets, dashboards, and metrics to analyze workflows, assess risk, identify gaps, and drive decisions.
• Comfort operating in environments with incomplete data access, evolving tooling, or shifting ownership and policy thresholds.
• AI-fluent with demonstrated experience using AI tools to improve operational speed, quality, or leverage.

🏖️ Benefits

• Opportunity to work at the front line of AI safety and risk management at OpenAI, shaping how cutting-edge AI systems are safely deployed.
• Hybrid work model with 3 days/week in-office in San Francisco, CA.
• Collaborative environment with senior leaders across Product, Engineering, Legal, Policy, and Partnerships teams.
• Access to cutting-edge AI tools and technologies to prototype and implement operational improvements.
• Exposure to high-impact, ambiguous challenges where operational design directly influences user safety and global AI deployment.
• Culture of innovation with emphasis on practical execution, automation, and lightweight system-building in fast-moving environments.

Skills & Technologies

Senior

Hybrid

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OpenAI, Inc.

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About OpenAI, Inc.

OpenAI is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research and deployment company founded in 2015. It develops large-scale AI models such as GPT, DALL-E, and Codex, providing cloud APIs and consumer applications like ChatGPT. Originally established as a non-profit, it later created a capped-profit subsidiary to attract capital while maintaining its mission to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

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