Hybrid Strategic Finance Lead, Robotics Hardware

at OpenAI

• Job title: Strategic Finance Lead, Robotics Hardware
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Senior
• Salary: $240,000 - $325,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, San Francisco, United States

About the role

• Strategic Finance Lead handling financial strategy for Robotics Hardware at OpenAI. Collaborating across departments to drive investment and capital planning for advanced AI technologies.

Responsibilities

• Own the Robotics financial strategy, investment portfolio, and capital plan, serving as the single point of financial accountability for the entire Robotics organization.
• Lead Robotics multi-year capital and investment planning, spanning R&D, headcount, facilities, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
• Own Robotics portfolio modeling and scenario planning, framing tradeoffs that directly inform executive decisions on scale, sequencing, and capital deployment.
• Own Robotics R&D forecasting, budgeting, and variance management, providing clear visibility into spend vs. plan, key drivers of change, and implications for company-wide investment priorities.
• Translate Robotics technical and research roadmaps into financially grounded execution plans, including assumptions around staffing mix, development timelines, infrastructure needs, and supporting capital investments.
• Partner closely with cross-functional Finance teams—including Financial Consolidations, Accounting, and Real Estate—to ensure Robotics financials are accurately reflected in company-wide reporting, planning, and resource allocation processes.
• Define the financial path to commercialization for Robotics, including pricing, unit economics, adoption curves, and revenue ramps.
• Provide executive-ready financial insights and narratives, clearly articulating risks, options, and tradeoffs across cost, timeline, technical uncertainty, and long-term platform value.
• Design and own the financial operating model for Robotics as it scales from advanced R&D into a hardware and platform business.
• Support portfolio-level decision-making by enabling comparisons across Robotics programs and investment profiles, informing prioritization, sequencing, and staged investment decisions.

Requirements

• Experience serving as the finance lead for a large, complex hardware or technology business with multi-year capital commitments.
• A track record of owning P&L-level decisions, investment portfolios, or large-scale capital planning.
• 12+ years of progressive finance experience with significant exposure to hardware, manufacturing, or complex supply chain businesses.
• A passion for helping build world-class finance teams and driving business and financial outcomes, as measured on margin improvement, working capital efficiency, forecast accuracy, and execution of cost-reduction initiatives.
• A strong ability to critically evaluate opportunities and risks.
• Expert modeling skills with best-in-class attention to detail and unwavering commitment to accuracy.
• Exemplary ability to distill complex financial information into actionable insights.
• Excellent communication skills and "story telling" ability when presenting data insights.
• Strong enthusiasm for building the human-computer interface for the AI era.
• A track record of building and leading high-performing teams.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
• Mental health and wellness support
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
• Relocation support for eligible employees
• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.