US Payroll Operations Lead

About the Team

OpenAI Finance is responsible for ensuring the organization is set up for success in pursuit of its mission.

OpenAI’s Payroll team is responsible for timely and accurate processing of payroll and ensuring compliance with all statutory regulations.

About the Role

The US Payroll Operations Lead will support all aspects of US payroll operations, ensuring the effective execution and scalability of OpenAI’s payroll function. You are a strategic thinker with a deep understanding of payroll systems (specifically Workday and ADP), US payroll regulations, and the ability to work in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. You’ll ideally have experience successfully working in payroll teams through a period of hypergrowth, with a focus on US payroll operations.

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:

• Support and execute end-to-end payroll processing for bi-weekly payroll cycles, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and compliance across multiple jurisdictions.

• Review and validate employee data changes (new hires, terminations, compensation changes, time and attendance inputs) to ensure payroll accuracy.

• Proactively identify and resolve payroll discrepancies, working directly with employees and internal partners to troubleshoot and prevent recurrence.

• Manage employee payroll support inquiries with a high degree of professionalism, clarity, and service orientation.

• Lead and manage day-to-day workflows with outsourced payroll/BPO partners to ensure SLAs are met, quality standards are upheld, and escalations are handled efficiently.

• Partner closely with HR, Finance, Accounting, and other cross-functional teams to ensure clean upstream inputs and accurate downstream reporting.

• Maintain documentation, process maps, and internal controls to support audit readiness and compliance.

• Recommend process improvements and identify automation or efficiency opportunities to drive continuous improvement in payroll operations.

You might thrive in this role if you have: 

• 8+ years of experience in payroll operations, preferably in a fast-paced or high-growth environment.

• Strong working knowledge of U.S. federal, state, and local payroll regulations, tax requirements, and standard payroll practices.

• Hands-on experience with Workday or other large HCM/payroll systems; ADP or SmartCompliance experience is a plus.

• Ability to independently manage priorities, take ownership of outcomes, and deliver high-quality work under tight deadlines.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with excellent attention to detail.

• Clear and concise communication skills, with the ability to partner effectively with internal and external stakeholders.

• Experience working with or managing BPO/vendor relationships is strongly preferred.

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, HR, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. CPP certification is a plus.

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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