Product Engineering Business Lead

OpenAI, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 333,000 - 370,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) retirement plan with employer-<

Paid parental leave

Paid time off

Relocation support

Daily meals in our offices

Job summary

OpenAI’s Product Design & Manufacturing (PD&M) vertical seeks a Manufacturing Expert to bring factory-operations expertise to customer engagements in San Francisco. You will lead early discovery, frame high-value problems, and inform FDE and account teams on fit, impact, and constraints, while grounding proposals in operating reality.

In this hands-on, customer-facing role, you’ll work across manufacturing processes, production systems, and business tradeoffs to craft actionable use cases and

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in manufacturing processes and factory operations.
• Track record of operating factories or complex production environments.
• Strong technology and AI fluency, with learning agility in frontier-tech environments.
• Excellent discovery and problem-framing skills for ambiguous needs.
• Ability to partner credibly with FDE and technical teams while respecting ownership.
• Evidence of commercial impact in complex technical or industrial environments.
• High agency, low ego with the willingness to do detailed work.
• Clear, concise communication and follow-through across stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Join and lead early customer conversations and workshops with manufacturing context.
• Surface and frame high-value problems and advise on fit, impact, constraints and adoption.
• Partner with FDE and customer teams to keep solutions grounded in reality.
• Serve as the manufacturing expert in the room across processes, systems and tradeoffs.
• Shape account strategy, executive engagement, and credible commercial paths.
• Establish operating cadence across priority pursuits with owners and measures of success.
• Turn lessons into reusable discovery methods, launch standards, and product feedback loops.
• Develop relationships across automotive, industrial and consumer electronics sectors.
• Operate with high agency and deliver results with meticulous follow-through.

Skills

Manufacturing processes expertise

Problem framing & discovery

Executive communication

Strategic account engagement

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Engineering, Physics degree or related field

Tools

Simulation tools

Job description

Product Engineering Business Lead | OpenAI

Careers

Product Engineering Business Lead

Special Situations - San Francisco

About the Team

OpenAI’s Product Design & Manufacturing (PD&M) vertical works with customers across the product lifecycle, from product engineering to the factory floor. We help manufacturers identify and deploy high-value applications of frontier AI that shorten product development cycles, improve product performance, reduce waste, increase factory uptime, and improve output and yield.

About the Role

We are hiring a Manufacturing Expert to bring deep factory-operations expertise and commercial judgment to customer engagements. You will lead early discovery and advise Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) and account teams on factory context, opportunity fit, and potential impact. FDE owns problem selection, project scoping, and proposals; you will provide the domain expertise needed to inform those decisions and keep delivery grounded in operating reality.

This is a hands-on, customer-facing role at the intersection of manufacturing, AI, deployment, and business development. You will speak the customer’s language, help operators and executives articulate underlying problems, and steer conversations toward work that can deliver meaningful value and is a strong fit for OpenAI.

Success means focusing OpenAI on valuable, operationally grounded manufacturing problems; helping FDE make better scoping and proposal decisions; earning customers’ trust in our manufacturing judgment; and turning successful engagements into broader partnerships. Over time, this role could grow into leading OpenAI’s manufacturing practice.

Key Responsibilities

• Join and help lead early customer conversations and workshops, bringing relevant manufacturing context to operators, technical leaders, and senior executives.

• Surface and frame high-value manufacturing problems, then advise FDE and account teams on likely fit, impact, constraints, and adoption considerations.

• Partner with FDE and customer teams throughout delivery to keep solutions grounded in operational reality, identify manufacturing risks early, and support adoption and measurable customer value.

• Serve as the manufacturing expert in the room, bringing credibility across factory processes, production systems, operational constraints, and business tradeoffs.

• Help win and expand strategic partnerships by shaping account strategy, executive engagement, compelling use cases, buyer narratives, and credible commercial paths.

• Establish a clear operating cadence across priority manufacturing pursuits and deployments, with explicit owners, capacity tradeoffs, risks, decisions, and measures of success.

• Turn lessons from customer and factory-floor work into reusable discovery methods, launch standards, product-feedback loops, and recommendations for product, go-to-market, partnerships, and enablement.

• Develop relationships across priority sectors, including automotive, industrial and agricultural equipment, and consumer electronics.

• Operate with high agency and low ego, moving fluidly between executive conversations, working sessions, analysis, writing, and delivery follow-through.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in manufacturing processes and factory operations, with the credibility to speak the customer’s language and challenge assumptions.

• A track record of operating factories or complex production environments, or directly implementing manufacturing solutions with customers.

• Strong technology and AI fluency, along with the learning agility to operate effectively in a fast-moving frontier-technology environment.

• Excellent discovery and problem-framing skills, including the ability to help customers articulate ambiguous operational needs and advise FDE on fit and impact.

• The ability to partner credibly with FDE and other technical teams while respecting their ownership of problem selection, scoping, proposals, and architecture.

• Evidence of commercial impact in complex technical or industrial environments, including earning executive trust, shaping account strategy, challenging risky or low-value work, and helping win or expand partnerships.

• High agency, low ego, sound judgment, and a willingness to do the detailed work required to move outcomes forward.

• Clear, concise communication and exceptional follow-through across factory operators, senior executives, account teams, and cross-functional technical partners.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with product development, product design, or simulation workflows, including relevant tools, systems, and processes.

• Experience with supply-chain processes, systems, or workflows.

• A degree in engineering, physics, or a related technical field.

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 Aff… 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.

Compensation

$333K – $370K + Offers Equity

The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non-exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts

• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)

• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match

• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)

• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees

• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)

• Mental health and wellness support

• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage

• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth

• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible

• Relocation support for eligible employees

• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.

This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.