Head of IT & Internal Platform Engineering

The OpenAI Deployment Company; San Francisco, New York (CA, NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

The OpenAI Deployment Company, deployed in San Francisco, is seeking a Head of IT to design, build, and run the firm’s first internal technology foundation. You will own identity, devices, SaaS administration, support workflows, automation, vendor operations, and IT team-building.

You will lead a hands-on, security-conscious program that delivers scalable IT across the company, enabling rapid deployment with auditable controls and strong governance. This role reports to DeployCo leadership.

Qualifications

• Have 8+ years of experience across IT, systems engineering, enterprise technology, infrastructure, security operations, platform operations, or a similar domain.
• Have built or materially rebuilt IT infrastructure in a startup, high-growth company, new business unit, or similarly ambiguous environment.
• Are technically credible and hands-on across areas such as identity platforms, endpoint management, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, Slack, SaaS administration, networking basics, cloud administration, scripting, and workflow automation.
• Are already a serious user of AI tools and have a practical point of view on how models, agents, and automation can change internal operations.
• Can write or debug scripts, connect APIs, inspect logs, configure admin consoles, and turn repeated manual work into reliable workflows.
• Have strong security judgment and know how to design controls that are practical, auditable, and usable.
• Communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders when tradeoffs involve speed, risk, cost, or employee experience.
• Enjoy being a player-coach: you can set strategy and manage people, but you are also willing to solve the ticket, configure the system, write the doc, and carry the work through.

Responsibilities

• Build the IT function from zero, including the roadmap, operating cadence, service model, vendor strategy, documentation, metrics, and hiring plan.
• Stand up and administer core systems across identity, endpoint management, SaaS, asset management, ticketing, knowledge management, networking, and collaboration.
• Design secure employee lifecycle workflows for onboarding, offboarding, access requests, group management, device provisioning, app assignment, approvals, and audit trails.
• Use AI and automation to reduce manual work across support, provisioning, documentation, incident triage, access reviews, policy Q&A, and compliance evidence collection.
• Partner with Security to implement controls around SSO, MFA/passkeys, SCIM, conditional access, device posture, privileged administration, logging, vendor risk, and data protection.
• Partner with Engineering and deployment teams to support technical workflows, customer-facing urgency, developer tooling, and systems that let teams move quickly without creating risky exceptions.
• Manage IT budget, procurement, renewals, hardware logistics, and vendor relationships with a bias toward speed, simplicity, and durable leverage.
• Hire, coach, and lead a small high-performing IT team while staying close to the work and modeling a hands-on builder culture.

Skills

IT leadership

SRE & security operations

Automation & scripting

Identity platforms

Google Workspace / Microsoft 365

SaaS administration

Vendor management

Tools

Slack

SCIM

SSO

Audit logging

Job description

The OpenAI Deployment Company, deployed in San Francisco, is seeking a Head of IT to design, build, and run the firm’s first internal technology foundation. You will own identity, devices, SaaS administration, support workflows, automation, vendor operations, and IT team-building.

You will lead a hands-on, security-conscious program that delivers scalable IT across the company, enabling rapid deployment with auditable controls and strong governance. This role reports to DeployCo leadership.