Lead, AI Hardware Deployment & Operations

OpenAI, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 342,000 - 445,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Parental leave

Paid time off and holidays

Relocation support

Meal programs or daily office meals

Equity/stock options

Learning and development stipend

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Tech Lead, Deployment & Operations for its Silicon & Systems team in San Francisco. You will spearhead deployment and operations of OpenAI’s custom silicon in data center environments, guiding hardware bring‑up, validation, and production readiness.

You will lead a team while coordinating with silicon, systems, software, and data center groups to ensure reliable, scalable deployment and ongoing fleet health.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering experience in hardware systems, infrastructure, data center deployment, production operations, systems engineering, silicon bring-up, or related technical domains.
• Strong technical depth in hardware deployment, data center operations, rack‑scale systems, silicon bring‑up, systems validation, fleet operations, reliability engineering, infrastructure automation, or hardware/software integration.
• Experience bringing complex hardware systems from development or validation into production environments.
• Experience working closely with silicon, systems, software, infrastructure, networking, or data center teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team responsible for deployment and operations of OpenAI’s custom silicon and systems in data center environments.
• Own the path from hardware bring-up and validation through production deployment, operational readiness, and sustained fleet support.
• Partner closely with silicon, systems, software, infrastructure, networking, data center, supply chain, and external partner teams to ensure successful deployment at scale.
• Define deployment processes, operational playbooks, technical readiness criteria, escalation paths, and reliability practices for new hardware platforms.
• Drive cross-functional execution across lab bring-up, rack/system integration, data center deployment, fleet monitoring, debugging, and issue resolution.
• Stay hands‑on technically through architecture reviews, deployment planning, failure analysis, operational debugging, and critical system‑level decision‑making.
• Identify gaps in tooling, observability, automation, validation coverage, and operational processes, and build plans to close them.
• Establish clear metrics for deployment readiness, reliability, performance, maintainability, and operational health.
• Build a strong engineering culture grounded in ownership, technical rigor, operational excellence, and high‑velocity execution.
• Ensure OpenAI’s custom hardware platforms can be deployed and operated reliably, repeatably, and safely at scale.
• Be a contributor and technical driver for the architecture and design of future ML systems.

Skills

Hardware deployment

Data center operations

Production operations

Systems validation

Automation tooling

Silicon bring-up

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical leadership

Job description

OpenAI is seeking a Tech Lead, Deployment & Operations for its Silicon & Systems team in San Francisco. You will spearhead deployment and operations of OpenAI’s custom silicon in data center environments, guiding hardware bring‑up, validation, and production readiness.

You will lead a team while coordinating with silicon, systems, software, and data center groups to ensure reliable, scalable deployment and ongoing fleet health.