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 world’s most exceptional researchers, engineers, and operational talent. Our technical recruiting group partners with trailblazing teams across Research, Engineering, Safety, Infrastructure, and more—identifying and securing the rare talent needed to develop globally transformative AI systems.
About the Role
We’re 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 OpenAI’s 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 ” role,this is a high-ownership leadership position at the intersection of executive recruiting, organizational design, talent intelligence, and long-term team architecture.
You’ll 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.
You’ll 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 OpenAI’s 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.
We’re 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 talent—especially researchers, engineers, or infrastructure leaders—in the most competitive global talent markets.
Exceptional communication, judgment, and presence—you’re 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; you’re 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 aren't 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 OpenAI’s 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.
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