Program Manager, Human Data -Strategic Initiatives

About the Team
The Human Data team turns human feedback into reliable signals for training and evaluation. We design and run end-to-end programs that capture the depth of human intent behind everyday and high-stakes uses of our models. Our remit spans bespoke data campaigns, scalable synthetic data generation, and product-embedded signals. We partner closely across all research teams to translate these signals into training datasets, novel evaluations, and feedback loops that push the frontier of our models and advance their applications.

About the Role

In this role you’ll act as a force multiplier for the Human Data leadership team - turning strategy into execution across our most important priorities. You’ll move fluidly between high-context research programs, operational scaling, and cross-functional execution, ensuring critical initiatives have the right structure, clarity, and momentum to succeed.

You’ll work closely with the Head of Human Data Operations to identify and drive impact where it matters most - whether diving into a strategic area, unblocking a burning challenge, or standing up a new capability for the team. You’ll combine technical fluency with program leadership and business judgment to accelerate outcomes across a fast-moving, high-stakes portfolio.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Identify and execute high-impact initiatives: Work alongside HD team to surface, prioritize, and operationalize strategic bets that strengthen OpenAI’s data ecosystem.

• Act as an executional extension of leadership: Step into ambiguous or critical areas, rapidly build context, and drive cross-functional alignment through to resolution or scale.

• Lead commercial and strategic execution: Negotiate and execute deals, manage partner conversations, and work closely with cross-functional teams - including Legal, Procurement, Security, and Finance - to bring opportunities to closure.

• Bridge strategy and delivery: Translate complex research and operational goals into structured, actionable programs that balance speed, scalability, and rigor.

• Optimize and unblock systems: Design lightweight processes, dashboards, and feedback loops to enhance visibility and accountability across the portfolio.

• Unblock Yourself: You must be deeply uncomfortable with the idea of sitting around waiting for external dependencies, and have the technical acumen and drive to figure out how to achieve at least partial success in the interim

• Optimize Systems & Processes: Build and optimize dashboards to track performance, leveraging SQL and Python for data analysis and actionable insights.

• Build leverage through others: Empower program managers, TPMs, and vendors to drive programs and operate in their domains - enabling you to stay focused on high-impact work
  

You’ll thrive in this role if you:

• Are proficient in SQL and Python for data analysis, including querying databases, processing large datasets, and generating actionable insights

• Are proficient in SQL for creating analytics dashboards, including writing complex queries, optimizing data retrieval, and visualizing insights for decision-making

• Combine technical intuition with strong business and commercial acumen.

• Are comfortable negotiating, structuring, and closing partnerships or vendor engagements.

• Build trust and momentum across diverse cross-functional teams, influencing without authority.

• Operate with high horsepower, switching fluidly between strategic abstraction and hands-on execution.

• Thrive in dynamic environments and enjoy solving problems that don’t yet have playbooks.

• Seek a role that amplifies organizational impact through clarity, execution, and sound judgment.

• Are excited to understand the technicalities of cutting edge AI research and work alongside researchers from instantiation to launch

• Enjoy being part of an ambitious and technically-minded team

• Want to get your hands dirty; grit and creative problem solving will be required daily

• Learn technical concepts exceptionally quickly, seeking out knowledge to become proficient in areas that are new to you.

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.

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

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