Technical Program Manager, Core Network & WAN Infrastructure

About the Team

The compute infrastructure team runs the GPU fleet and supercomputers that serve the models backing ChatGPT and API while also supporting training workloads for our next generation models. We manage one of the largest cutting edge GPU fleets in the world, exposing it as a singular 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

We're hiring a Technical Program Manager to own delivery of OpenAI's WAN infrastructure across PoPs, long-haul fiber routes, cloud interconnects, colocation environments, and provider handoffs.

This is a hands-on infrastructure execution role. You will drive PoP readiness end-to-end: equipment, cabling, optics, cross-connects, port maps, vendor dependencies, cloud connectivity, test plans, operational runbooks, and escalation paths. You should be comfortable working with network engineers, datacenter operators, cloud providers, fiber vendors, finance, procurement, and business teams, while maintaining crisp ownership of what is live, blocked, at risk, and needed next.

The right person has enough technical depth to reason through physical and logical network readiness, enough program discipline to keep complex builds moving, and enough ownership to improve how we scale instead of only tracking status.

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 to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Own end-to-end execution for PoP buildouts, expansions, and network capacity delivery across internal teams, vendors, colocation providers, fiber providers, and cloud providers.

• Drive physical and logical readiness across routers, line cards, optics, cabling, patch panels, cross-connects, provider handoffs, cloud interconnects, BGP sessions, routing policy, and production turn-up.

• Maintain clear ownership of timelines, dependencies, risks, blockers, escalation paths, and readiness milestones for active network deployments.

• Translate network capacity needs and deployment plans into concrete execution workstreams with owners, dates, test expectations, and acceptance criteria.

• Partner closely with network engineers to validate link state, optics health, FEC/BER signals, light levels, interface configuration, routing readiness, and handoff completeness.

• Ensure vendors and datacenter teams have the instructions they need: port maps, rack elevations, LOAs/CLOAs, diagrams, install windows, test plans, access details, and acceptance criteria.

• Build durable operational mechanisms, including PoP readiness checklists, deployment trackers, vendor instruction templates, escalation playbooks, and standard operating procedures.

• Identify recurring bottlenecks in PoP deployment and network capacity delivery, then drive fixes that make future builds faster, more predictable, and less dependent on tribal knowledge.

• Communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including crisp status, impact, owner, next step, and requested decision for escalations.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Deep experience driving infrastructure, networking, datacenter, cloud connectivity, telecom, fiber, or technical operations programs.

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

• A track record of independently owning ambiguous, cross-functional infrastructure programs from planning through production handoff.

• Experience working directly with network engineers, datacenter operations, colocation providers, carriers, cloud providers, vendors, finance, procurement, and business stakeholders.

• Excellent written communication and operating discipline: clear trackers, clean handoffs, useful status updates, and escalation notes that drive decisions.

• A practical, self-driven approach focused on unblocking execution, improving mechanisms, and raising the operational bar.

• Comfort going deep into details when needed, whether that means reading a port map, questioning a handoff, chasing a vendor blocker, or helping define the test plan for a new site.

• Experience with large-scale WAN, backbone, edge, cloud, or AI/ML infrastructure.

• Familiarity with BGP, routing policy, optical transport, DWDM, dark fiber, cloud interconnects, peering, or high-capacity datacenter networking.

• Experience with Arista, Juniper, Cisco, or similar network platforms.

• Experience building operational dashboards, deployment tooling, automation, or structured reporting for infrastructure programs.

• Experience with global infrastructure expansion, network capacity planning, or vendor/commercial negotiations.

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-bas