About the Team
OpenAI’s Industrial Compute team builds and operates the foundation that powers our research and products. Networking is at the core of this effort: our ability to train and serve cutting-edge models depends on reliable, scalable, and cost-efficient global WAN connectivity. The team works across self-built data centers, colocation facilities, and cloud environments to design and deliver a high-performance fabric that connects millions of GPUs and AI systems worldwide.
About the Role
We are hiring a Global Network Infrastructure Lead to plan, design, and deliver the WAN backbone that underpins OpenAI’s next generation of compute. This role spans technical execution and commercial strategy: you’ll deliver connectivity across self-built data centers and partner colocation sites while structuring and negotiating agreements for dark fiber, wavelengths, and interconnection.
You’ll work closely with engineering, finance, legal, and operations to define requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and drive large, complex network projects from concept to delivery. This is a high-impact, high-visibility role, central to building a global network at a scale few organizations have ever attempted – laying the physical and logical foundation that will support OpenAI’s path to superintelligence.
In this role, you will:
Translate research and product requirements into actionable network strategies, balancing performance, reliability, and cost at global scale.
Architect and deliver large-scale data center and backbone network infrastructure, spanning self-built sites, colocation, and cloud environments.
Structure and negotiate high-value agreements for network colocation, dark fiber, wavelengths, peering, and edge connectivity.
Partner with infrastructure finance and legal to ensure technical and business objectives align in sourcing and investment decisions.
Build and manage relationships with carriers, fiber providers, colocation partners, and interconnection platforms to expand and diversify OpenAI’s network footprint.
Lead supplier identification, RFPs, proposal evaluation, and commercial negotiations to secure cost-effective, resilient capacity.
Monitor project performance and risks across cost, capacity, and timelines, proactively driving resolution to meet commitments.
You may be a good fit if you:
Have extensive experience building and scaling backbone and data center networks at hyperscale, cloud, or large enterprise environments.
Understand the technical, operational, and commercial aspects of dark fiber, wavelengths, colocation, and interconnection.
Are skilled at structuring and negotiating complex commercial agreements with carriers, fiber providers, and colo partners.
Excel at working cross-functionally with engineering, finance, and legal teams to balance trade-offs and deliver results.
Are comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and bringing clarity and structure to complex challenges.
Have a track record of leading high-stakes projects from design through execution, managing multiple competing priorities.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
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.
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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.
