Strategic Sourcing Leader, Core Products

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 185,000 - 205,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI, Inc. in San Francisco seeks a Sourcing Manager to oversee vendor workflows from intake to onboarding and approval. You will manage a portfolio of sourcing requests across product areas, ensuring timely execution and compliance.

You will partner with senior sourcing owners and cross-functional teams including Product, Engineering, Legal, Security, and Finance to negotiate, structure contracts, and support scalable product launches.

Qualifications

• 5+ year experience leading technology partnerships, sourcing, or commercial negotiations in a high-growth, product-driven environment.
• Strong cross-functional leadership- able to align Product, Engineering, Legal, Security, and Finance around complex, high-stakes decisions.
• Comfort operating in regulated or high-risk domains (payments, identity, data, financial or health-adjacent infrastructure).
• A track record of negotiating commercial, technical, and data-driven agreements with technology vendors.
• The ability to move fast in ambiguity while maintaining commercial discipline, compliance, and risk awareness.
• Strong analytical skills to evaluate pricing models, volume ramps, FX exposure, and vendor risk in the context of revenue and product growth.
• An ownership mindset-you independently drive deals, resolve blockers, and close outcomes that materially impact product launches and revenue.
• A desire to accelerate OpenAI's mission by enabling better vendor partnerships, faster launches, and more effective execution at scale.

Responsibilities

• Run high-velocity, mid-complexity deals end-to-end: from vendor strategy and RFPs through negotiation, security review, contracting, and go-live.
• Coordinate supplier onboarding, collect required documents and track dependencies through completion.
• Drive approval follow-through with Legal, Security, Privacy, Finance and other reviewers.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to ensure external vendors can support new product launches without blocking delivery or increasing risk.
• Structure contracts and pricing models that preserve optionality, support rapid scaling, and minimize long-term lock-in and switching costs.
• Maintain accurate deal records, status updates, decisions and next actions.
• Support sourcing requests, renewals, evaluations and change orders.
• Act as the control plane between fast-moving product teams and external dependencies, ensuring speed without sacrificing governance, compliance, or economics.

Skills

Technology partnerships

Sourcing

Commercial negotiations

Cross-functional leadership

Regulated environments

Vendor risk assessment

Data-rights knowledge

Job description

OpenAI, Inc. in San Francisco seeks a Sourcing Manager to oversee vendor workflows from intake to onboarding and approval. You will manage a portfolio of sourcing requests across product areas, ensuring timely execution and compliance.

You will partner with senior sourcing owners and cross-functional teams including Product, Engineering, Legal, Security, and Finance to negotiate, structure contracts, and support scalable product launches.