Recruiter, AI/ML Research

OpenAI; California (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Job summary

OpenAI in San Francisco is seeking a senior talent strategist for AI research and technical science roles. You will partner with research staff to define hiring priorities and shape search strategies for frontier-model talent.

You will lead complex, high-stakes negotiations, guide evaluation, and collaborate with sourcing to execute ambitious searches across industry, academia, and emerging labs. This role is based in SF with hybrid work and relocation assistance.

Qualifications

• Significant experience recruiting within highly technical or specialized environments.
• Deep interest in AI research and a desire to engage directly with global research communities.
• Experience recruiting within highly technical or specialized environments such as ML/AI, distributed systems, infrastructure, scientific computing, or quantitative research.
• Track record of leading complex, ambiguous technical searches from early talent mapping through close.
• Experience navigating high-stakes negotiations with senior technical or research candidates.

Responsibilities

• Partner directly with research and technical staff to define hiring priorities, shape search strategies, and anticipate future talent needs as technical roadmaps evolve.
• Proactively identify and cultivate exceptional AI/ML research talent across industry, academia, and emerging labs, often before formal hiring needs exist.
• Use market insights and candidate signals to influence hiring decisions, leveling, and compensation strategy for highly specialized research roles.
• Serve as a trusted advisor throughout candidate evaluation and closing — helping leaders calibrate for research excellence, long‑term potential, and organizational fit.
• Collaborate closely with your sourcing partner to execute complex, high‑impact searches in ambiguous or rapidly evolving technical domains.

Job description

About the Team

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) that benefits all of humanity. Achieving this requires bringing the world’s most exceptional talent under one roof to push the boundaries of what’s possible.

Our Research Recruiting team plays a critical role in this effort. We are an embedded part of the research organization, working side by side with our research staff to deeply understand evolving priorities, build trust, and strategically shape the future of OpenAI’s talent.

About the Role

You will own and execute long-term talent strategies to identify, engage, and recruit many of the world’s leading and emerging AI researchers, research engineers, and technical scientists working at the frontier of machine learning. This is not a traditional execution-focused recruiting role.

You will operate as a strategic partner to OpenAI’s research staff, helping define hiring priorities, shape search strategy, influence candidate evaluation, and guide hiring decisions that directly impact the direction and quality of our frontier-model research and fulfillment of our mission.

In this role, you will:

• Partner directly with research and technical staff to define hiring priorities, shape search strategies, and anticipate future talent needs as technical roadmaps evolve.
• Proactively identify and cultivate exceptional AI/ML research talent across industry, academia, and emerging labs, often before formal hiring needs exist.
• Use market insights and candidate signals to influence hiring decisions, leveling, and compensation strategy for highly specialized research roles.
• Serve as a trusted advisor throughout candidate evaluation and closing — helping leaders calibrate for research excellence, long‑term potential, and organizational fit.
• Collaborate closely with your sourcing partner to execute complex, high‑impact searches in ambiguous or rapidly evolving technical domains.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Significant experience recruiting within highly technical or specialized environments.
• Deep interest in AI research and a desire to engage directly with global research communities.
• Experience recruiting within highly technical or specialized environments such as ML/AI, distributed systems, infrastructure, scientific computing, or quantitative research.
• Track record of leading complex, ambiguous technical searches from early talent mapping through close.
• Experience navigating high‑stakes negotiations with senior technical or research candidates.
• Comfort operating in fast‑moving environments where hiring priorities and role definitions may evolve over time.

Workplace & Location

This role is based in our San Francisco office and we aren’t considering remote applications at this time. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office with optional work from home on Thursdays and Fridays. We also offer relocation assistance to new employees.

Our open‑plan offices have height‑adjustable desks, conference rooms, phone booths, well‑stocked kitchens full of snacks and drinks, three in‑house prepared meals daily, outdoor space for working and socializing, wellness rooms, private bike storage, and more.

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 Affimative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity 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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We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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