Account Director, Federal Partnerships (Defense)

OpenAI; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking an senior leader to own a portfolio of emerging defense technology accounts within its Go To Market organization. You will lead account and deal strategy, manage customer meetings, and collaborate with engineering teams to translate customer needs into deployed AI capabilities.

You will build trusted relationships with senior executives in government and private sector, anticipate customer needs, and drive adoption while navigating the pace of defense technology.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of combined relevant experience across government, military, defense tech, or PaaS/SaaS, including 2+ years in customer-facing roles.
• Proven private-sector results with measurable business or customer outcomes.
• Strong business acumen and strategic judgment; ability to convert insight into action.

Responsibilities

• Lead account strategy and commercial execution for your defense tech portfolio from discovery to close.
• Manage customer meetings and coordinate with technical teams to deploy capabilities.
• Maintain accurate pipeline, forecasts, and next steps; build executive relationships.
• Collaborate with solutions and engineering to move customers from evaluation to deployment.
• Drive expansion opportunities and cross-team alignment across OpenAI.

Skills

Defense technology

Executive stakeholder mgmt

APIs & integration

Private-sector leadership

Job description

About the team

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings the world’s best scientists, engineers, and business professionals into one lab together to accomplish this.

In pursuit of this mission, our Go To Market (GTM) team is responsible for helping customers learn how to leverage and deploy our highly capable AI products across their organization. The team comprises Sales, Solutions, Support, Marketing, and Partnership professionals who collaborate to create valuable solutions that will help bring AI to as many users as possible.

About the role

Our Federal Partnerships team brings advanced AI to the defense industrial base. You’ll own a portfolio of emerging defense technology accounts and lead their account and deal strategy. You’ll also work with the broader partnerships team to grow larger strategic relationships.

You’ll independently lead customer meetings and manage your assigned emerging defense technology portfolio, working with technical teams to turn customer needs into deployed capabilities. This is a demanding, hands‑on role that requires initiative, persistence, and a strong sense of responsibility for getting useful AI capabilities into customers’ hands.

This role is based in Washington, DC, with up to 25% travel. 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’ll:

• Lead account strategy and commercial execution for your emerging defense technology portfolio, from discovery and negotiation through close and expansion.
• Support the broader partnerships team on larger strategic relationships across the defense industrial base.
• Work with solutions and engineering teams to move customers from AI evaluation to deployment and sustained adoption.
• Maintain accurate pipeline, consumption forecasts, and clear next steps.
• Build trusted executive and technical relationships, connecting AI capabilities to business and mission outcomes.
• Anticipate customer needs and bring customer and market insights into product and partnership decisions.
• Coordinate across OpenAI to advance deals, remove blockers, and deliver on customer commitments.

We’re seeking someone with:

• 8+ years of combined relevant experience across government, military service, defense technology, or PaaS/SaaS businesses, including at least 2 years in private‑sector, customer‑facing roles.
• Proven private‑sector results, with clear examples of business or customer outcomes you personally drove.
• Strong business acumen and strategic judgment, including the ability to assess opportunities, navigate stakeholders, and turn insight into action.
• The ability to take initiative, set priorities, and deliver results amid the ambiguity and pace of defense technology.
• Polished, clear communication and experience working directly with senior executives in government or the private sector.
• Hands‑on experience applying AI tools to practical problems, with the ability to explain the approach, results, and limitations. Strong understanding of APIs and workflow integration, with the ability to engage engineering teams credibly.
• Military service and/or defense technology experience are valued.
• Initiative, urgency, and coachability, with a record of acting on feedback and following through.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Are customer‑centric. You understand customers’ priorities and take ownership of helping them deploy useful capabilities quickly.
• Are deeply curious about AI. You regularly test new capabilities, explore their limits, and identify practical uses for customers.
• Bring a strong work ethic. You take initiative, prepare thoroughly, and follow through. You move quickly through ambiguity without sacrificing judgment or trust.
• Look ahead. You anticipate what customers will need next and help them identify new opportunities.

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 AffInative 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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