Frontier AI Research · San Francisco
About the Role
OpenAI is building the infrastructure for the next generation of AI-native businesses — and our partners are central to that mission. The Agentic AI Deployment Funding Program is one of the most strategically important initiatives in our partner ecosystem: a $150M+ annual investment designed to accelerate real-world deployment of OpenAI's models through our global partner network.
We are looking for a builder-scaler — someone who can move from blank-page program architecture to operational reality without losing precision or speed. This role owns the full lifecycle of OpenAI's partner deployment incentive programs: designing the framework, building the infrastructure, running the operations, and measuring what actually moves the needle.
This is not a program management role. It is a design-and-build role at the intersection of strategic program architecture, partner economics, and data-driven execution. The person who succeeds here will have earned strong opinions about how incentive programs work — and why most of them don't.
What You Will Own
Program Architecture & Design
Lead end-to-end design of OpenAI's Agentic AI Deployment Funding Program — including tier structure, eligibility criteria, investment sizing logic, and payout trigger mechanics.
Develop and maintain a differentiated incentive framework across partner segments: Global Systems Integrators, regional consultancies, and domain-specialist AI implementers.
Build the program governance model: approval workflows, partner-facing terms, compliance architecture, and mid-cycle rebalancing protocols.
Design program versioning and evolution strategy — including deprecation and migration pathways as market conditions change.
Execution & Operations
Own the operational backbone of the deployment fund: claim intake, eligibility validation, calculation methodology, payout operations, and dispute resolution.
Build or oversee the data and calculation infrastructure required to run incentive operations at scale — including upstream API/billing integrations, partner portal touchpoints, and Finance reconciliation processes.
Manage program calendar, partner communication cadence, and cross-functional delivery against committed program timelines.
Partner closely with Legal, Finance, and Compliance to ensure program terms are defensible and payouts are audit-ready.
Measurement & Optimization
Design and own the measurement framework for the deployment fund — defining leading and lagging indicators, establishing baselines, and building the reporting infrastructure for executive audiences.
Conduct ongoing program performance analysis: adoption cohort analysis, ROI modeling, partner segment diagnostics, and investment efficiency assessment.
Generate and present regular program performance reviews to senior leadership, including Finance and GTM leadership, with clear recommendations.
Lead post-launch optimization cycles: identify underperforming design elements, develop hypothesis-driven modifications, and test changes rigorously before scaling.
Cross-Functional Stakeholder Engagement
Drive alignment across Sales, Product, Finance, Legal, Marketing, and Partner Success on program design decisions — navigating competing priorities with rigor and speed.
Serve as the subject matter expert on partner incentive design for cross-functional working groups, including new product launches and GTM strategy reviews.
Build and maintain strong relationships with key partner stakeholders — including C-suite contacts at strategic partners — to ensure program design reflects real deployment dynamics.
What We Are Looking For
The Mindset We Are Hiring For
We want someone who has built incentive programs before and has strong convictions — earned through real experience — about what works and what doesn't. You should be the kind of person who gets frustrated when programs are designed for optics instead of outcomes, and who finds the data and operational complexity of incentive operations genuinely interesting, not burdensome.
Required Experience & Qualifications
8+ years of experience in partner incentive program design, commercial program operations, or partner economics — ideally within a technology platform company at scale.
Demonstrated experience owning the full lifecycle of a large-scale incentive program — from design through operational execution and measurement — not just strategy or analysis.
Strong command of program financial mechanics: investment sizing, payout waterfall design, ROI modeling, and scenario analysis.
Experience building or overseeing the data and calculation infrastructure for incentive operations — including upstream integrations, payout processing, and audit controls.
Track record of driving alignment across Sales, Finance, Legal, and Partner teams on complex program design decisions.
Exceptional analytical capability: comfortable with cohort analysis, attribution modeling, and building measurement frameworks from scratch where none exist.
Strong written and verbal communication skills — able to present complex program logic and performance data to senior executives with clarity and conviction.
Preferred Qualifications
Prior experience designing or operating Deployment Funds, Market Development Funds, or similar investment vehicles at $50M+ scale.
Background in the AI or cloud partner ecosystem (hyperscalers, AI platform companies, or ecosystem-first businesses).
Experience adapting mature incentive program frameworks to early-stage or rapidly evolving market contexts.
Familiarity with API/consumption-based billing models and the unique challenges of measuring deployment success in AI workloads.
Experience working in a startup or high-growth environment where program infrastructure did not yet exist and had to be built.
Why This Role, Why Now
The Agentic AI Deployment Funding Program is one of the most consequential partner investment vehicles in the industry right now. The person who builds and runs this program will shape how OpenAI's technology reaches production workloads at enterprise scale — and will do so at a moment when the competitive dynamics of the AI ecosystem are still being defined.
This is a builder role with genuine organizational visibility. You will work directly with senior GTM and Finance leadership, have material influence on OpenAI's partner investment strategy, and have the rare opportunity to create category-defining program infrastructure from scratch.
There is no playbook. That is the point.
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.
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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