Environmental Health and Safety, Engineering & Technical Program Manager

About the Team

The Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) team partners across the company to enable safe, compliant, and scalable operations as our work, facilities, and technologies grow globally. We work closely with Engineering, Research & Development, Workplace, Operations, Security, IT, and external partners to design practical safety programs that support innovation while protecting people.

Our approach emphasizes risk-based decision making, thoughtful program design, and strong cross-functional collaboration. We focus on building systems that scale, meet regulatory expectations, and are easy for teams to adopt in fast-moving environments.

About the Role

OpenAI is seeking an EHS Manager, Engineering & Technical Operations to support expanding hardware engineering and research and development environments across emerging technology domains.

This role will partner closely with engineering, research, and technical operations teams to assess and control exposure risks, strengthen safe work practices, and build scalable EHS programs that enable innovation while protecting people, facilities, and equipment. You will operate across multiple technical disciplines and translate complex hazards into practical controls that teams can apply in fast-moving environments.

The role also provides EHS advisory input on product and equipment safety, helping engineering teams identify hazards early in development and integrate safety considerations into evolving technologies.

This position requires strong operational judgment, field presence, and the ability to collaborate effectively with technical teams while maintaining regulatory compliance.

This role is onsite in the San Francisco Bay Area five days per week to support close partnership and strong field engagement in technical environments.

In this role, you will:

• Lead EHS programs supporting hardware engineering, research and development, and technical operations environments across multiple sites, with emphasis on industrial hygiene and product and equipment safety risks.

• Conduct exposure and hazard assessments across chemical, physical, and operational risks and implement effective controls aligned with the hierarchy of controls.

• Develop, maintain, and scale SOPs and safety standards for technical workflows, equipment use, materials handling, and high-risk operations.

• Partner with engineering and technical teams to embed safety-by-design principles into equipment, workspaces, and evolving technical processes.

• Provide EHS advisory support on product and equipment safety, helping identify hazards during development, testing, and deployment phases.

• Strengthen compliance frameworks across OSHA/Cal-OSHA, NFPA, ANSI, and related safety standards, ensuring programs align with regulatory expectations.

• Support regulatory readiness across sites, including preparing teams for inspections, coordinating responses to agency inquiries, and partnering with regulators when necessary.

• Own or co-own programs such as hazard communication, chemical management, ventilation and engineering controls effectiveness, equipment safety, and contractor safety.

• Lead incident and near-miss investigations, develop corrective and preventive actions, and analyze trends to drive continuous improvement.

• Deliver targeted training, support onboarding and work authorization or permitting processes, and reinforce a strong on-the-floor safety culture.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• 8–10+ years of EHS experience supporting engineering, research and development, technical operations, or other complex technical environments.

• Strong capability in industrial hygiene principles, including exposure assessment, monitoring approaches, and control selection.

• Experience advising teams on product or equipment safety hazards, including mechanical, electrical, thermal, or chemical risks.

• Technical fluency across multiple disciplines such as mechanical systems, electrical hazards, equipment safety, materials and chemical hazards, and facility controls.

• Working knowledge of OSHA/Cal-OSHA, NFPA, ANSI, and related regulatory frameworks.

• Experience supporting or interfacing with regulatory agencies or inspections and translating regulatory requirements into practical operational controls.

• Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functional partners and embed safety considerations early in engineering and operational planning.

• Strong field presence and operational judgment in dynamic, evolving technical environments.

• Professional certifications such as CSP, ASP, CIH, CHMM, or equivalent are preferred.

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-publi