Frontier AI Research · San Francisco
About the Team
The Internal Controls function sits within the broader Finance Risk Management (FRM) organization and plays a key role in strengthening the integrity, scalability, and reliability of OpenAI’s finance-critical operations.
Our team designs and governs the Internal Controls over Financial Reporting (ICFR) framework that supports accurate, transparent financial results. We focus on business-process controls across areas like Order-to-Cash, Compute, Data, Global Financial Close, Accounting Operations, Real Estate and AI infrastructure-related spend. We work closely with Product, GTM, Corporate Finance, Legal, BizOps, Strategic Finance, Accounting, Finance Platforms and Compliance to ensure processes are well-designed, well-documented, and audit-ready.
FRM, as the broader function, leads OpenAI’s financial risk posture—spanning governance over internal controls, third-party risk, audit readiness, and financial systems oversight. Together, we provide the foundation of trust that enables OpenAI to operate at global scale.
About the Role
We’re seeking a seasoned, strategic leader to own and scale readiness frameworks and governance that underpin OpenAI’s ICFR/SOX compliance program and broader Financial Risk Management priorities. You’ll be responsible for translating ambiguity into clear standards, repeatable practices, and decision frameworks that enable cross-functional teams to operate consistently with high integrity in dynamic, product-driven environments.
This highly cross-functional role sits at the intersection of finance, systems, product, and operations, spanning subscription and recurring revenue models, global commerce, and complex ads monetization. You’ll be a core partner in aligning stakeholders, driving remediation progress, and turning multi-team initiatives into concise leadership insights and risk-based decisions. Success in this role requires strong judgment, clear communication, and the ability to drive outcomes through influence.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA or New York, NY. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
In this role, you will:
Lead financial readiness assessments for new product launches, ensuring all subscription, commerce, and ads monetization flows have built-in controls and automated reconciliation.
Define and operationalize SOX/ICFR readiness frameworks (standards, playbooks, templates, governance forums, and review cadences) that scale with business growth and complexity.
Drive large-scale transformation initiatives to modernize revenue accounting, billing systems, and cash-flow reporting.
Establish clear control expectations, metrics, and checkpoints across end-to-end revenue lifecycles.
Drive risk assessments and control rationalization (what matters most, where to automate, where to simplify), using data and business context to focus effort on highest-impact reporting risks.
Identify and mitigate financial risks within the "Quote-to-Cash" and "Order-to-Revenue" lifecycles, focusing on leakage prevention and data integrity.
Oversee control testing strategies and issue management; ensure permanent remediation through process and system improvements rather than just documentation fixes.
Drive root-cause analysis, action planning, and timely closure of deficiencies in partnership with process owners.
Partner with Engineering, Product, and Legal teams to integrate financial compliance and risk management requirements into the product development roadmap.
Build durable cross-functional relationships and governance practices that facilitate risk-based decision making without formal authority.
Elevate risk and control topics into business discussions with clarity, confidence, and executive presence.
Maintain a world-class control environment (SOX/Internal Controls) tailored to dynamic, high-growth digital monetization streams.
Act as primary liaison for internal and external audits in your domains—anticipating requests, aligning expectations on PBC items, and presenting control health and risk profiles.
Own RCMs, narratives, and end-to-end process documentation quality, ensuring documentation is accurate, current, and “test-ready” (including evidence expectations and system dependencies).
Partner with workstream leads and co-sourced teams to ensure outputs are consistent, high-quality, and leadership-ready.
You might thrive in this role if you have:
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field; CPA, CA strongly preferred.
10+ years in financial risk management, internal audit, or financial process transformation — preferably in high-growth, technology-enabled or product-driven environments with complex revenue models.
Well-rounded SaaS revenue experience covering diverse monetization models (subscription/usage-based, commerce, marketplace, Ads).
Deep understanding of how data integrity, measurement pipelines, metering systems, and revenue operations tie into control objectives, risk assessments, and reporting accuracy.
Strong preference for candidates who have built and implemented E2E Ads controls frameworks from the ground up—ideally within a pre-IPO or public company context, with deep familiarity with ads infrastructure economics, measurement, billing, and monetization lifecycle risks.
Demonstrated ability to understand Ads platform workflows and translate process, system, and data requirements into effective, testable controls that address both operational and financial reporting impact..
Experience building and running scalable control programs with governance, risk assessments, workplans, and durable artifacts.
Ability to translate technical and product workflows (especially Ads systems and revenue engines) into defensible controls, risk matrices, narratives, and audit-ready documentation.
Excellent communication and cross-functional influence, able to drive decisions across Finance, Product, Engineering, Data, and audit partners.
Comfortable operating in fast-changing, ambiguous environments where products, pricing, and cost structures evolve faster than traditional control frameworks.
Familiarity with ERP, subledger, RevRec/CPQ systems, ads measurement/billing platforms, GRC tooling (AuditBoard, Workiva) and homegrown systems/data platforms.
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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