Infrastructure Turnover & Deployment Specialist

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is embarking on a journey to build the world's most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Physical Infrastructure team is central to this mission, setting the core infra strategy and implementing this vision. From site selection to the buildout process, this team sits at the intersection of commercial, technical, strategy, and operations, interacting with teams and executives inside and outside of OpenAI.

OpenAI is seeking an experienced infrastructure delivery professional to lead the execution of white space fit-outs and serve as the operational handoff lead between construction and production readiness. This role manages deployment execution end-to-end - from vendor coordination and equipment racking to commissioning readiness and operational turnover - across our global data center footprint.

This role is ideal for someone passionate about bridging construction and operations, enabling seamless handoffs to site operations and compute/network teams. You will work directly with vendors, technical teams, and commissioning groups to ensure deployments meet performance, availability, and documentation standards.

• Lead full-scope white space fit-outs, including cabinet layout validation, server/network gear installation, PDU/power whip integration, and structured cabling oversight.

• Serve as the deployment execution lead, translating infrastructure designs into field-ready workstreams and bridging the gap between design, commissioning, and operations.

• Support and coordinate commissioning handoffs, ensuring physical infrastructure is fully validated, documented, and turned over to SiteOps and Compute teams.

• Actively participate in Design for Operability (DFO) reviews to influence design assumptions related to cable pathways, rack access, and maintainability.

• Drive network bring-up readiness through patch panel setup, fiber/copper installation verification, and pre-activation testing.

• Manage external vendors and deployment partners to keep installation timelines, QA inspections, and material tracking on schedule.

• Document deployment progress and capture lessons learned to improve playbooks and guide future rollouts.

• Lead site readiness walkthroughs with commissioning and operations teams to verify power, cooling, labeling, and metadata alignment.

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years managing infrastructure delivery and operational handoff within data center environments (hyperscale, AI, or cloud preferred).

• Proven track record in white space buildouts, structured cabling, power integration, and server/network equipment deployment.

• Strong commissioning support experience - including rack readiness, power/cooling validation, and final turn-up sequencing.

• Experience bridging construction and SiteOps, ensuring continuity from build phase through steady state.

• Familiarity with asset onboarding workflows, BOM validation, naming conventions, and metadata hygiene for operational systems.

• Skilled at coordinating multiple contractors and internal teams in fast-paced, high-volume environments.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Background in Site Operations (SiteOps, RunOps) or network infrastructure deployment roles for hyperscale, AI, or cloud environments

• Experience reading and interpreting rack elevations, site deployment diagrams, structured cabling layouts, and network patching plans

• Familiarity with networking hardware (switches, routers, optics) and server/storage system installation practices

• Understanding of fiber testing and certification processes, cabling standards, and network turn-up workflows

• Strong verbal and written communication skills to manage cross-functional coordination and external vendor alignment

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.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy

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.

Compensation Range: $230K - $355K