Tech Lead, Deployment & Operations — Custom Infrastructure

The role

This person will lead a team responsible for the deployment and operations of custom silicon and systems in data center environments. They will manage the path from hardware bring-up and validation through production deployment and sustained fleet support.

What you will do

• Lead a team responsible for deployment and operations of OpenAI’s custom silicon and systems in data center environments
• Own the path from hardware bring-up and validation through production deployment, operational readiness, and sustained fleet support
• Partner with silicon, systems, software, infrastructure, networking, data center, supply chain, and external partner teams
• Define deployment processes, operational playbooks, technical readiness criteria, escalation paths, and reliability practices
• Drive cross-functional execution across lab bring-up, rack/system integration, data center deployment, fleet monitoring, debugging, and issue resolution
• Stay hands-on through architecture reviews, deployment planning, failure analysis, operational debugging, and system-level decision-making
• Identify gaps in tooling, observability, automation, validation coverage, and operational processes
• Establish clear metrics for deployment readiness, reliability, performance, maintainability, and operational health
• Build a strong engineering culture grounded in ownership, technical rigor, operational excellence, and high-velocity execution
• Ensure custom hardware platforms can be deployed and operated reliably, repeatably, and safely at scale

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering experience in hardware systems, infrastructure, data center deployment, production operations, systems engineering, silicon bring-up, or related technical domains
• Strong technical depth in one or more of: hardware deployment, data center operations, rack-scale systems, silicon bring-up, systems validation, fleet operations, reliability engineering, infrastructu
• Experience bringing complex hardware systems from development or validation into production environments
• Experience working closely with silicon, systems, software, infrastructure, networking, or data center teams
• Experience with deployment planning, operational readiness, incident response, debugging, and root-cause analysis for production systems
• Experience building tooling, automation, observability, or operational processes that improve deployment quality and fleet reliability
• Demonstrated ability to hire, develop, and lead senior technical talent
• Ability to move fluidly between people leadership, technical strategy, and hands-on operational problem solving
• Strong written and verbal communication skills

Nice to have

• Experience working in fast-moving environments

Before you apply

• Candidates for this role may need to meet certain legal status requirements to comply with U.S. export control laws and regulations
• Background checks for applicants will be administered

About the company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. The Hardware organization develops AI-native silicon and system-level solutions for advanced AI workloads.