Technical Program Manager, People Innovation Labs

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking an experienced Technical Program Manager to lead a portfolio of complex, cross-functional initiatives within the People organization. You will turn product strategy into clear, coordinated execution, establish plans and operating structures, and align multiple teams to drive delivery and launches.

You will own ongoing engagement with users, onboarding, training, and feedback-driven iteration to reach product-market fit.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in technical program management, product operations, or similar roles
• Led multiple high-impact programs involving several technical and business teams
• Experience taking new software products from planning through launch, adoption, and iteration
• Energized by working directly with users and providing hands-on support
• Builds trust with users and elicits candid feedback
• Identifies patterns across feedback, usage data, and signals to drive recommendations
• Strong technical fluency to partner with engineers on architecture, data, security, and delivery tradeoffs
• Led organizational or operational change alongside technical product delivery
• Influences senior leaders and aligns teams with competing priorities
• Communicates clearly across technical teams, partners, users, and execs
• Balances strategy with hands-on execution and keeps processes lightweight
• Curious about how AI can transform organizations and workflows

Responsibilities

• Independently lead complex, high-priority technical programs from planning through launch and ongoing iteration
• Translate strategy and objectives into clear, executable plans with Product and Engineering leadership
• Establish program structures, governance forums, cadences, and cross-team accountability
• Align product, design, engineering, data, operations and stakeholders on priorities and delivery plans
• Manage technical dependencies, sequencing, risks, and launch readiness with engineering leads
• Identify gaps and drive decisions to move work forward
• Anticipate risks, resolve blockers, and elevate critical decisions when needed
• Own communication, enablement, change management, and rollout strategies for new products
• Lead post-launch user engagement through onboarding, training, and hands-on support
• Build trusted relationships with users and solicit frequent feedback for improvements
• Observe product fit in real workflows and identify points of friction or unmet needs
• Translate user insights into themes and actionable recommendations for product, design, engineering
• Create tight feedback loops to test assumptions and iterate toward product-market fit
• Define and track program health, adoption, user sentiment, and outcomes
• Maintain visibility into priorities, progress, dependencies, and risks across portfolios
• Prepare decision-oriented updates for senior leadership
• Improve planning and execution while keeping processes lightweight
• Curiosity about AI's impact on organization and work

Skills

Technical program mgmt

Cross-functional collaboration

Product operations

User enablement

Risk & dependency management

Executive communication

Job description

About the Team

People Innovation Labs is a product, design, and engineering team embedded in the People organization. We build AI-powered products that improve how OpenAI finds and supports exceptional talent and helps employees do their best work.

Our work spans recruiting, HR, learning, performance, culture, and company-wide knowledge. We build new products from the ground up and work closely with teams across OpenAI to rethink existing workflows using our latest models.

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced Technical Program Manager to lead execution across a portfolio of complex, cross-functional initiatives.

You’ll partner closely with product managers, designers, engineers, and teams across the People organization to turn product strategy into clear, coordinated execution. You’ll establish the plans and operating structures needed to move work forward, align technical and operational teams, drive decisions, manage dependencies and risks, and ensure stakeholders are prepared for launches.

Because we build new products from the ground up, the work does not end when a product launches. You’ll own ongoing engagement with users, including onboarding, training, hands-on support, and creating clear ways for people to share feedback. You’ll develop a deep understanding of how our products fit into users’ day-to-day work, what is working, and where they are struggling. You’ll bring those insights back to product, design, and engineering so the team can iterate quickly toward product-market fit.

You’ll also help keep the team aligned with its broader objectives. You’ll maintain a clear view of priorities, progress, dependencies, risks, and outcomes across the portfolio and provide clear updates and recommendation to team and company leadership.

In this role, you will:

• Independently lead complex, high-priority technical programs from early planning through launch, adoption, and ongoing iteration.

• Partner with product and engineering leadership to translate strategy and team objectives into clear, executable plans.

• Establish program structures, decision-making forums, operating cadences, and accountability across multiple teams.

• Align product, design, engineering, data, operations, and other stakeholders around priorities, responsibilities, and delivery plans.

• Partner closely with engineering leads to manage technical dependencies, sequencing, delivery risks, and launch readiness.

• Identify gaps in strategy or execution, develop recommendations, and drive the decisions needed to move work forward.

• Anticipate risks and blockers, clarify tradeoffs, resolve disagreements, and elevate decisions when needed.

• Own communication, enablement, change management, and rollout strategies for new products and workflows.

• Lead post-launch user engagement through onboarding, training, office hours, hands-on support, and other programs that drive adoption.

• Build trusted relationships with users and create an environment where they provide frequent, candid feedback.

• Observe how products fit into real workflows and identify points of confusion, friction, or unmet need.

• Combine user feedback, usage data, and operational signals to understand what is working and what needs to change.

• Translate user insights into clear themes and actionable recommendations for product, design, and engineering.

• Create tight feedback loops that help the team test assumptions, learn quickly, and iterate toward product-market fit.

• Define and track program health, adoption, user sentiment, and operational outcomes.

• Maintain visibility into priorities, progress, dependencies, and risks across the team’s portfolio.

• Prepare clear, decision-oriented updates and recommendations for senior leadership.

• Improve the team’s planning and execution practices while keeping processes lightweight.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have 7+ years of experience in technical program management, product operations, or a similar role leading complex software initiatives.

• Have independently led multiple high-impact programs involving several technical and business teams.

• Have helped take new software products from early planning through launch, adoption, and rapid iteration toward product-market fit.

• Are energized by working directly with users and willing to provide hands-on support while a product is still new.

• Know how to build trust with users, ask good questions, and get candid feedback about what is and is not working.

• Can identify patterns across qualitative feedback, usage data, and operational signals and turn them into actionable recommendations.

• Have strong technical fluency and can partner with engineers on architecture, integrations, data dependencies, security, reliability, and delivery tradeoffs.

• Have led significant operational or organizational change alongside technical product delivery.

• Can influence senior leaders, drive difficult decisions, and build alignment across teams with competing priorities.

• Identify and address strategic or execution gaps without waiting for detailed direction.

• Communicate clearly and directly across technical teams, operational partners, users, and executives.

• Can move comfortably between organizational strategy and detailed, hands-on execution

• Bring structure to fast-moving work without adding unnecessary process.

• Are curious about how AI can change the way organizations operate and how people work.

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 Affinitive 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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