Technical Program Manager, Core Network & WAN Infrastructure

About the Team

The compute infrastructure team runs the GPU fleet and large-scale compute clusters that serve the models backing ChatGPT and the API, while also supporting training workloads for our next generation models. We operate a large, modern GPU fleet and provide a unified platform for other OpenAI teams to seamlessly run production Applied AI and Research training workloads.

We seek to learn from deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this powerful tool is used responsibly and safely. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth.

About the Role

You will join an engineer-first TPM team and own end-to-end delivery of OpenAI’s WAN Infrastructure, partnering with engineers to bring clusters online across external providers and partners.

This is a hands-on infrastructure execution role. You’ll run a broad, parallel portfolio spanning hardware, cabling, optics, cloud cross-connects, and port maps—driving execution, risk management, and crisp alignment from working teams through leadership to deliver production-ready capacity at scale.

The right person combines enough technical depth to reason through physical and logical network readiness with the program discipline and ownership to keep complex builds moving and improve how we scale.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance.

In this role, you will:

• Lead end-to-end delivery of OpenAI’s WAN build-out and large-scale GPU clusters across an external partner ecosystem

• Drive multi-threaded network infrastructure bring-up programs across physical and logical readiness—owning plans, dependencies, and critical paths

• Partner with engineering to turn up large-scale network capacity, reducing bring-up time for our largest GPU supercomputers by working across optics, circuits

• Identify recurring bottlenecks in WAN and network infrastructure build-out, then drive fixes that make future builds faster, more predictable, and less dependent on tribal knowledge

• Coordinate cross-functional readiness (security, finance, operations, product/research stakeholders) to ship production-ready compute

• Manage integration and handoffs across teams and partners—ensuring consistent execution, clear communication, and fast issue resolution

• Identify bottlenecks and systemic gaps, then drive durable fixes across tooling, process, and partner interfaces

• Provide crisp executive visibility on progress, tradeoffs, and risks across a large portfolio of concurrent programs

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Possess a degree in a hard science, or have a demonstrated track record of engineering expertise.

• Have 5+ years of experience in program management for major projects including capital projects or hyperscaler infrastructure deployment.

• Are relentlessly resourceful and thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments

• Demonstrate the ability to serve as the go-to person solely responsible for driving and delivering complex projects.

• Strong technical intuition across physical networking, WAN/backbone infrastructure, colocation environments, cloud interconnects, cross-connects, optics, cabling, routing, and operational readiness.

• Have experience interfacing with and leading external vendors including engineering firms, equipment suppliers, and/or construction firms.

• Have expertise in designing and implementing simple, scalable processes that solve complex problems.

• Have experience managing complicated dependencies such as logistics and/or supply chains.

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 Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

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.