Strategic Technology Negotiations Lead

ABOUT THE TEAM OpenAI's Strategic Sourcing team helps the company scale responsibly, efficiently, and at speed. We partner with leaders across Engineering, Research, IT, Systems, Finance, Legal, and other teams to shape commercial strategies, negotiate critical agreements, and build resilient supplier ecosystems. Our work connects technical strategy, commercial judgment, financial discipline, and execution in support of OpenAI's mission. ABOUT THE ROLE OpenAI is seeking a Strategic Technology Negotiations Lead to personally lead some of the company's most complex and consequential technology negotiations. This is not a people manager role. It is a senior strategic IC operator role for an expert negotiator who wants to remain close to the work and personally drive high-impact outcomes. We are especially interested in leaders who have managed teams and are intentionally seeking an individual contributor role where their impact comes through judgment, influence, and direct ownership. Rather than owning a fixed category, you will be deployed against high-priority opportunities where deal complexity, commercial stakes, executive visibility, or time pressure require exceptional negotiation leadership. Your initial focus will include data platforms and infrastructure, including data lake and lakehouse technologies, observability, and enterprise SaaS, with flexibility to work across other strategic technology areas. You will lead negotiations from strategy through execution, aligning decision-makers and driving agreements to closure. Many of these negotiations exist within broader supplier and partner ecosystems. You will look beyond the immediate transaction to account for interconnected cost, equity, revenue, partnership, risk, and long-term strategic implications. Success requires strong economics, sound judgment under pressure, executive credibility, and the ability to bring stakeholders with you through difficult decisions. 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: - Personally lead complex, high-value, and business-critical technology negotiations from initial strategy through signed agreement. - Develop fact-based negotiation plans that define objectives, leverage, alternatives, sequencing, roles, decision points, and escalation paths. - Rapidly synthesize technical requirements, supplier economics, market dynamics, adoption patterns, dependencies, and business priorities. - Partner with leaders across Engineering, Research, IT, Systems, Finance, Legal, Corporate Development, and other teams to establish a unified negotiation strategy. - Assess each negotiation within the broader supplier ecosystem, identifying interconnected relationships that may create value, constraints, dependencies, or leverage. - Shape complex deal structures with cost, equity, revenue, partnership, risk, and long-term strategic implications. - Advise executives through clear, decision-ready narratives covering deal strategy, financial impact, alternatives, risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations. - Lead supplier engagement at working-team and executive levels, including difficult escalations and negotiations conducted under significant pressure. - Create commercial structures that deliver meaningful savings and cost avoidance while improving scalability, flexibility, performance, and risk allocation. - Turn lessons from major negotiations into reusable playbooks, market intelligence, and stronger negotiation practices for Strategic Sourcing. YOU MIGHT THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU: - Have 10+ years of experience leading complex commercial negotiations in strategic sourcing, technology procurement, strategic partnerships, deal strategy, corporate development, or a related field. - Are an expert negotiator who enjoys personally developing the strategy, leading the room, and driving difficult deals to resolution. - Have previously managed or led teams and are intentionally seeking a senior individual contributor role centered on direct ownership, influence, and execution. - Have personally led large-scale enterprise software or technology agreements with sophisticated pricing, commitment, licensing, consumption, or partnership structures. - Understand enterprise software business models, including usage-based pricing, multi-year commitments, ramp structures, pooled consumption, growth protections, and performance-based economics. - Can evaluate a deal across cost, revenue, equity, partnership value, supplier leverage, risk, and long-term ecosystem implications. - Have negotiated agreements involving data platforms, infrastructure software, observability, enterprise SaaS, or similarly complex technology categories. - Can engage credibly with deeply technical teams and influence senior executives through structured thinking, clear communication, and sound commer