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Compensation Operations Lead

OpenAI

San Francisco, USremote country$293k-$325k/yrPosted May 28, 2026

At a glance

Highlights

  • Global variable compensation programs
  • Cross-functional collaboration with finance and legal
  • Leadership of end‑to‑end payout cycles

Heads up

  • Onsite work required in San Francisco

Why this role might suit you

A seasoned operations professional with deep compensation expertise can drive scalable, compliant programs across OpenAI's GTM teams, influencing high‑impact financial processes while partnering with finance, legal, and product stakeholders.

Skills

compensation-managementhrisfinance-systemsdata-qualityreportingdashboardsprocess-designgovernanceauditstakeholder-management

About the role

ABOUT THE TEAM

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) that benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings together the world’s leading scientists, engineers, and business professionals to develop and deploy transformative AI technologies.

Our Go-To-Market (GTM) organization helps customers understand, adopt, and scale OpenAI’s products and platform. Revenue Operations partners closely with Sales, Finance, and People teams to drive planning, performance management, and operational excellence across the business. The Planning team leads key revenue planning cycles and helps align resources, incentives, and execution against company priorities.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are seeking a Compensation Operations Lead to build and scale the operational infrastructure supporting OpenAI’s global variable compensation programs across Sales, Technical Success, Partnerships, and other GTM teams.

This role owns the systems, processes, administration, and execution of compensation operations—including plan administration, compensation tooling, payout cycles, governance, and field support. Partnering closely with Revenue Operations, Finance, Total Rewards, HRIS, and GTM Systems, you will ensure compensation programs are accurate, scalable, compliant, and trusted by the field.

The ideal candidate combines deep compensation operations expertise with strong systems thinking, operational rigor, and a customer-service mindset.

YOU'LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR:

COMPENSATION OPERATIONS

- Administer compensation plans, quotas, credits, adjustments, exceptions, and payout processes.

- Manage compensation workflows, approvals, and annual planning cycles.

- Support compensation launches, plan changes, and operational readiness across GTM teams.

- Design scalable processes that ensure accurate and efficient compensation administration.

SYSTEMS & TOOLING

- Own compensation systems and integrations, including configuration, testing, release management, vendor relationships, and enhancement prioritization.

- Partner with GTM Systems, Finance Systems, and HRIS teams on architecture, implementation, and process improvements.

- Ensure data quality and operational readiness across compensation workflows.

GOVERNANCE, REPORTING & PAYOUTS

- Lead recurring compensation payout cycles, reconciliations, and operational close processes.

- Own compensation letter generation, distribution, tracking, and record management.

- Partner with Legal, HR, and Finance on governance, approvals, compliance, and audit requirements.

- Develop reporting, dashboards, and quality assurance processes to improve visibility and accuracy.

FIELD SUPPORT & ENABLEMENT

- Serve as the primary escalation point for compensation-related field questions.

- Build scalable support resources, FAQs, documentation, and intake processes.

- Partner with Enablement and Sales Leadership to improve understanding, adoption, and trust in compensation programs.

WE'RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WITH:

- 8+ years of experience in compensation operations, sales operations, revenue operations, finance operations, or related operational roles.

- Deep experience administering variable compensation programs at scale.

- Strong experience with compensation systems and operational tooling.

- Experience managing payout cycles, quota workflows, plan administration, and compensation governance.

- Demonstrated ability to build scalable operational processes in high-growth environments.

- Strong cross-functional stakeholder management and communication skills.

- Strong analytical, systems, and problem-solving capabilities.

- Comfortable balancing strategic thinking with hands-on execution.

NICE TO HAVE

- Experience standing up or scaling compensation operations during periods of rapid growth.

- Familiarity with consumption-based or hybrid revenue models.

- Experience implementing or administering compensation management 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.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf

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

This Operations role pays $293k-$325k/yr. Within typical range for operations roles in United States.

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