Research Lead, Policy Communications

About the Team

The Product Policy team develops and implements policies that shape how OpenAI’s technology is built and used. We work with teams across the company to turn complex questions about AI’s benefits and risks into practical guidance for responsible research, product development, and deployment.

About the Role

As Research Lead, Policy Communications, you will build and lead a rigorous research program that helps OpenAI understand how people engage with complex AI policy issues. You will design qualitative and quantitative studies, develop durable research practices, and translate findings into clear recommendations for Policy, Communications, Product, and other partners. Your work will help teams communicate complex topics accurately, responsibly, and in ways that are useful to a broad range of audiences.

This role can be based in San Francisco or Remote. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Build and manage a mixed-methods research program from initial questions through study design, fieldwork, analysis, reporting, and documentation. Establish high standards for quality, consistency, and responsible research practice.

• Design rigorous quantitative research, including surveys and longitudinal studies. Oversee questionnaire design, sampling, weighting, vendor quality, analysis, and clear communication of uncertainty and limitations.

• Lead qualitative research, including interviews and focus groups, to understand how people interpret complex policy topics. Use these insights to improve the clarity, accuracy, and usefulness of policy communications.

• Turn findings into executive-ready reports with practical recommendations for Policy, Communications, Product, Marketing, Data Science, Legal, Privacy, and other partners. Build reusable research tools, benchmarks, and knowledge that strengthen decision-making over time.

We’re looking for someone with:

• We’re looking for a senior mixed-methods research leader who combines deep quantitative and qualitative expertise with strong strategic judgment. You should be able to independently turn an ambiguous policy communications question into a rigorous well-scoped research plan, a clear interpretation of the evidence, and practical recommendations that teams can use.

• You might thrive in this role if you:

  • Bring substantial experience leading public-opinion, communications, policy, market, or behavioral research in a complex or fast-moving environment.

  • Have deep survey-methods expertise, including questionnaire design, sampling, weighting, panel and vendor quality, experimentation, statistical analysis, longitudinal research, and clear treatment of uncertainty.

  • Design and conduct or oversee strong qualitative research, including recruitment, interviewing or moderation, synthesis, and integration with quantitative findings.

  • Have experience designing research across varied populations and judging whether a sample can support the conclusions being drawn.

  • Translate research into clear communications, policy, and product recommendations, and influence senior cross-functional partners when evidence challenges a preferred direction.

  • Communicate complex methods and findings clearly; manage research vendors, budgets, timelines, privacy, and research ethics; and build durable systems that let organizational learning compound.

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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