CPU/Storage/PoP-WAN Program Manager

OpenAI; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 226,000 - 285,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a highly technical Program Manager to lead cross‑functional infrastructure programs across CPU, storage, PoP, and WAN deployments. You will own schedules, coordinate hardware readiness, and drive initiatives from rack‑level details to executive capacity planning discussions.

The role requires deep technical fluency in hardware, networks, and storage, with strong communication skills to report milestones and risks to senior leadership.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of technical program management in infrastructure deployment, data centers, or large-scale networks.
• Experience delivering cross-functional programs across engineering, operations, supply chain, and external vendors.
• Strong understanding of deployment lifecycles from planning and procurement through production handoff.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end execution of CPU/GPU cluster activation programs across OpenAI's global infrastructure footprint.
• Drive readiness to convert contracted compute capacity into schedulable production clusters.
• Own deployment programs for new PoPs, backbone nodes, WAN expansion, and interconnection initiatives.
• Build integrated schedules spanning procurement, logistics, installation, storage readiness, network turn‑up, testing, and production handoff.
• Coordinate BOM readiness, server delivery, racks, optics, cabling, storage hardware, and vendor milestones.
• Partner with engineering teams to align compute, storage, and networking dependencies before cluster activation.
• Manage deployment of storage systems supporting training and inference workloads, including readiness, validation, performance checks, and scaling plans.
• Coordinate backbone capacity expansion, cross‑connects, inter‑region pathing, and cloud interconnect readiness with Azure and third‑party providers.
• Lead physical deployment execution including rack‑and‑stack, hardware bring‑up, L1 validation, and site acceptance criteria.
• Build repeatable deployment playbooks, dashboards, governance cadences, and operating mechanisms for scale.
• Identify risks early across supply chain, site readiness, technical constraints, and vendor execution, then drive mitigation plans.
• Communicate milestones, escalations, and capacity forecasts to senior leadership.

Skills

Program management

Infrastructure deployment

Network deployment

Cross-functional programs

Executive communication

Project scheduling

Vendor management

Problem-solving

Job description

About the Team

OpenAI's Infrastructure organization builds the systems that power frontier AI workloads at global scale. As compute demand accelerates, our ability to rapidly convert infrastructure investments into usable production capacity has become mission critical.

The CPU / Storage / PoP / WAN team is responsible for the end-to-end infrastructure layers required to bring compute online: server and cluster activation, storage platforms, Points of Presence (PoPs), backbone connectivity, and global network expansion. We operate across first-party facilities, colocation environments, and strategic cloud partners to ensure OpenAI can scale reliably and quickly.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly technical Program Manager to lead execution across CPU, Storage, PoP, and WAN infrastructure programs that directly unlock OpenAI's next generation compute capacity.

In this role, you will own complex cross-functional programs spanning compute cluster activation, storage deployment, PoP bring-up, and backbone expansion. You will coordinate hardware readiness, site readiness, network pathing, storage availability, vendor execution, and engineering dependencies required to turn contracted infrastructure into live training and inference capacity.

This role requires strong technical fluency across hardware systems, network infrastructure, storage architecture, and deployment execution. You should be comfortable operating from rack-level implementation details through executive-level capacity planning discussions.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, with travel as needed.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end execution of CPU / GPU cluster activation programs across OpenAI's global infrastructure footprint
• Drive readiness to convert contracted compute capacity into schedulable production clusters
• Own deployment programs for new PoPs, backbone nodes, WAN expansion, and interconnection initiatives
• Build integrated schedules spanning procurement, logistics, installation, storage readiness, network turn‑up, testing, and production handoff
• Coordinate BOM readiness, server delivery, racks, optics, cabling, storage hardware, and vendor milestones
• Partner with engineering teams to align compute, storage, and networking dependencies before cluster activation
• Manage deployment of storage systems supporting training and inference workloads, including readiness, validation, performance checks, and scaling plans
• Coordinate backbone capacity expansion, cross‑connects, inter‑region pathing, and cloud interconnect readiness with Azure and third‑party providers
• Lead physical deployment execution including rack‑and‑stack, hardware bring‑up, L1 validation, and site acceptance criteria
• Build repeatable deployment playbooks, dashboards, governance cadences, and operating mechanisms for scale
• Identify risks early across supply chain, site readiness, technical constraints, and vendor execution, then drive mitigation plans
• Communicate milestones, escalations, and capacity forecasts to senior leadership

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in technical program management, infrastructure deployment, network deployment, or data center operations
• Strong experience delivering programs involving compute, storage, networking, or large‑scale infrastructure systems
• Working knowledge of servers, clusters, storage arrays, routers, switches, optics, and structured cabling
• Experience owning cross‑functional programs across engineering, operations, supply chain, and external vendors
• Strong understanding of deployment lifecycles from planning and procurement through production handoff
• Ability to reason across physical infrastructure execution and logical systems architecture dependencies
• Proven ability to build integrated schedules and drive accountability across multiple stakeholders
• Strong executive communication skills with experience managing critical escalations and leadership updates
• Comfortable operating in fast‑moving environments with aggressive timelines and evolving priorities
• Highly analytical with strong problem‑solving and execution instincts

Preferred Skills

• Experience at a hyperscaler, cloud provider, AI infrastructure company, or global network operator
• Experience deploying GPU clusters, HPC systems, or large training environments
• Familiarity with distributed storage systems and high‑performance data infrastructure
• Experience with PoP deployments, WAN backbone expansion, or global network buildouts
• Experience working across first‑party, colo, and cloud environments
• Experience building repeatable infrastructure deployment systems in high‑growth environments

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 AffiStatement

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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Compensation Range: $226K - $285K