Head of People Systems

About the Team
OpenAI’s People team aims to hire, engage, and retain world-class talent who will ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The People Ops team supports a complex, growing employee group of scientists, engineers, and business professionals.

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced and technical leader for our People Systems team to ensure we have the right technology strategy in place to enable the initiatives and programs driven by the People Team and cross-functional partners. As part of the People Operations leadership team, you’ll work alongside the leaders of Recruiting Ops, Employee Support, and Compliance teams.

You’ll be responsible for important goals:

• Conduct an Assessment: Evaluate our current People Systems and technology landscape to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This includes assessing system performance, user experience, compliance, audit readiness, and data privacy practices to inform your strategic decisions in support of the People Team's initiatives.

• Create the Strategy: Develop a comprehensive technology strategy for People Systems that supports business requirements and aligns with our innovative culture. Your strategy should incorporate a deep understanding of our internal products and their potential to enhance People Team solutions, processes, and the overall employee experience, with a focus on compliance and data security. It will be critical to be able to lead within a matrix of owning the technology solutions, and partnering to ensure the overall technology ecosystem is sound, as well as setting the foundation for People analytics. 

• Drive the Roadmap: Establish and communicate a clear roadmap for People Systems that outlines key initiatives, timelines, and milestones. You will ensure that this roadmap is aligned with the strategic priorities of the People Team and cross-functional partners such as IT, Finance, and Legal, especially around data integrity and consistent data governance. 

• Lead the Team: Lead and mentor the People Systems team, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. You will be responsible for building a strong, high-performing team that can execute on the strategy and adapt to the evolving needs of the business and the People Team.

• Champion our Mission: As a key promoter of OpenAI's mission to advance AI for the benefit of humanity, you will lead efforts to integrate this mission into our People Systems. Advocate for leveraging our own products within People Systems to test and refine solutions, aligning technology initiatives with strategic goals and ensuring robust data privacy practices.

We’re looking for a blend of this experience:

• HR Systems Experience: 10-15+ years of experience in HR systems (experience, across multiple HR disciplines, including working within a shared services environment a strong plus) 

• Extensive Experience with Workday and Technical Proficiency:

  • Deep understanding of Workday's configuration, business processes, reporting capabilities, and data management

  • Proven track record of implementing and managing Workday HCM modules.

  • Workday certification(s) in relevant modules or areas of expertise, including HCM, Security, Compensation, Benefits or Absence

  • Strong technical skills in system integrations and security best practices.

• Leadership and Team Management:

  • 5-10 years of demonstrated experience leading and mentoring a technical team in a People Systems or HR context.

  • Proven success in building and scaling People Systems in a high-growth, global organization

  • Ability to manage cross-functional teams and collaborate effectively with IT, Finance, and Legal.

• Strategic Planning and Execution:

  • Experience in developing and executing technology strategies that align with organizational goals and HR initiatives.

  • Ability to create and communicate a technology roadmap for People Systems.

  • Experience managing vendors ensuring alignment with organizational goals and technology strategy, and partnering with Procurement to negotiate contracts, manage performance, and collaborate to optimize service delivery.

• Communication, Problem Solving, and Stakeholder Management:

  • Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.

  • Focus on developing and implementing change management strategies to ensure adoption

  • Strong problem-solving abilities with a focus on continuous improvement and leveraging new technologies.

  • Ability to work closely with HR leadership and other senior stakeholders to understand and address their needs.

Location and Workplace

This role is based either in our Mission Bay, San Francisco, CA office or remotely in the US if outside of an office location.

Our offices use a hybrid work model: three days in the office per week with optional work from home on Thursdays and Fridays. We offer relocation assistance to new employees.

Our open-plan offices have height-adjustable desks, conference rooms, phone booths, well-stocked kitchens full of snacks and drinks, three in-house prepared meals daily, a private outdoor space for working in the sun or socializing, nap rooms, private bike storage, and more.

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 do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. 

OpenAI Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement

For US Based Candidates: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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

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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.