Designer, Research and Experiments

OpenAI, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI, Inc. is seeking a Designer to lead hands-on design for research and experimental creative work.

You will help define visual direction, build prototypes, and carry ideas through to finished work across research communications, demos, and experiences. This role blends strong craft with experimental making, collaborating with researchers, creative leads, and production partners to turn complex scientific concepts into accessible visuals, scalable graphic systems, and clear storytelling

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant design experience.
• Portfolio demonstrating senior-level design judgement and ability to make complex ideas understandable.
• Experience shaping visual direction and delivering projects from early exploration through final production with hands-on contribution.
• Strong graphic design fundamentals and ability to create flexible visual systems across digital or physical media.
• Experimental practice including prototyping, testing approaches, and learning new tools as needed.
• Curiosity to understand unfamiliar research and preserve technical meaning.
• Ability to guide collaborators, explain design decisions, and sustain momentum during evolving briefs.
• Experience with research storytelling, creative technology, interactive or experiential work, motion systems, or AI-assisted making.

Responsibilities

• Define the design problem, story, and visual direction with researchers and leads.
• Translate research concepts into accurate visual narratives, validated with subject-matter experts.
• Develop concepts and prototypes for experiments, demos, and experiences, iterating on ideas.
• Design across web, editorial, social, film, and experiential formats with a cohesive visual idea.
• Build reusable graphic systems, templates, and design patterns for research communications.
• Provide feedback and guide contributions from collaborators, upholding typography and information design.
• Own design delivery for complex workstreams, aligning with partners as research findings evolve.

Skills

8+ yrs exp

Senior design judgement

Visual direction

Graphic design fundamentals

Flexible visual systems

Prototyping

Research storytelling

Leadership / guiding

AI-assisted making

Job description

About the Team

OpenAI didn’t begin as a traditional company. It began as an idea: that artificial intelligence could be developed in a way that benefits everyone. As a creative team, our role is to help make sure the work behind that idea is understood, as it leaves the lab and meets the world.

This company works at the frontier of intelligence. Like any frontier, it’s unfinished, constantly shifting, and still being explored. Our job is to stay close to that uncertainty and help shape how this story gets told, in a way that feels grounded and human. We do this through campaigns, launches, films, brand systems, and work that doesn’t fit neatly into any of those categories yet. This team is for people who want to help shape something from the beginning.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Designer to lead hands‑on design for research and experimental creative work. You’ll help define a project’s visual direction, build prototypes, and carry promising ideas through to finished work across research communications, demos, and experiences.

This role combines strong graphic design craft with an experimental approach to making. You’ll work closely with researchers, creative leads, and production partners, bringing structure to open‑ended briefs and helping collaborators turn technical concepts into work people can understand and engage with.

In this role, you will:

• Partner with researchers and creative leads to define the design problem, identify the essential story, and establish a clear visual direction.
• Translate research concepts, methods, and findings into accurate visual narratives, checking interpretations and limitations with subject‑matter experts.
• Develop concepts and prototypes for experiments, demos, and experiences, using iterative making to test and refine creative possibilities.
• Design across web, editorial, social, film, and experiential formats, maintaining a coherent visual idea as work moves between media.
• Build reusable graphic systems, templates, and design patterns that support research communications and make future work easier to develop.
• Guide design contributions from collaborators, give specific feedback, and maintain a high standard of typography, composition, and information design.
• Own design delivery for complex workstreams, align priorities with partners, and adapt scope as research findings and production requirements evolve.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• 8+ years of relevant experience
• A portfolio demonstrating senior‑level design judgment, strong conceptual thinking, and polished work that makes complex ideas understandable.
• Experience shaping visual direction and delivering projects from early exploration through final production, with substantial hands‑on contribution.
• Strong graphic design fundamentals and experience creating flexible visual systems across digital or physical applications.
• An experimental practice that includes prototyping, testing approaches, and learning new tools or formats as the idea requires.
• The curiosity to understand unfamiliar research, ask precise questions, and preserve technical meaning rather than simplify it inaccurately.
• The ability to guide collaborators, explain design decisions, synthesize feedback, and maintain momentum when a brief is still developing.
• Experience with research storytelling, creative technology, interactive or experiential work, motion systems, or AI‑assisted making is especially relevant.

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 ...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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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.