Technical Lead Jobs in Washington

About The Team

The Cooperative AI team is scaling to devices and embedded operations and user experiences. Our model-powered scaled workforce and knowledge system are moving on to the edge and powering our devices and edge experiences. By leveraging OpenAI’s state-of-the-art models and technologies, in production and in the lab, we develop systems that reason and work autonomously with customers and with our workforce responsible for operational work. We carry real workloads for critical systems across finance, sales, customer support, integrity, product insights, internal operations, and now devices to drive insights into product and industry. We partner closely with internal teams and external customers globally, operating in a hyper-fast feedback loop where many of our users are just a few steps away. This proximity allows us to iterate quickly, validate impact in real time, and accelerate industry impacting learnings and systems builds. We are a highly multidisciplinary, self-contained team focused on transforming the workplace via smart systems, knowledge, scalable and reliable primitives that apply world-class AI capabilities across domains. Our mission is to learn fast and transform how humans collaborate with AI at scale.

About The Role

We are looking for a Technical Lead Manager to lead a team of engineers building AI-native embedded experiences and operations-forward systems. In this role, you will perform both hands-on technical leadership and small team management. You will drive business outcomes, architecture and technical strategy for complex systems, contribute directly to implementation, and help grow a high-performing team. You will work closely with internal stakeholders to understand operational challenges, identify high-leverage opportunities for automation, and deliver solutions that create measurable impact. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys moving between technical design, coding, mentoring engineers, and working directly with users to understand their problems.

In This Role, You Will

- Lead the technical direction, architecture, and execution of critical Cooperative Systems initiatives.
- Manage and mentor a team of engineers while maintaining meaningful hands-on technical involvement.
- Partner closely with stakeholders across Support, Operations, Finance, IT, Sales, Legal, and other functions to identify opportunities for AI-driven improvements.
- Design and build production systems that leverage large language models and other AI technologies.
- Drive engineering excellence through strong technical decision-making, code quality, operational rigor, and thoughtful system design.
- Balance rapid experimentation with long-term platform investments.
- Establish technical roadmaps and execution plans for projects spanning multiple teams.
- Coach engineers through technical challenges, career growth, and project execution.
- Help shape the culture, processes, and engineering practices of a growing organization.

You Might Thrive in This Role If You

- Have experience leading engineering projects involving consumer devices and/or embedded systems.
- Enjoy building products and systems in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
- Are comfortable moving between architecture discussions, coding, stakeholder meetings, and team leadership.
- Have strong systems design and software engineering fundamentals.
- Are excited about applying AI to solve real-world operational problems.
- Communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Have a track record of delivering complex, cross-functional initiatives from concept through production.

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-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. 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. OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy. 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 Range: $325K - $385K