Infrastructure Cost & Schedule Lead

About The Team

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is embarking on a journey to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Stargate team is central to this mission, setting the core infra strategy and implementing this vision. From site selection to the buildout process, this team sits at the intersection of commercial, technical, strategy, and operations, interacting with teams and executives inside and outside of OpenAI.

About The Role

OpenAI is seeking someone who is excited by massive global challenges spanning thousands of stakeholders; someone motivated by solving complex, interconnected problems. Specifically, the Infrastructure Strategy & Delivery team supporting Stargate is seeking an experienced and ambitious leader to join our team as the Infrastructure Cost & Schedule Lead. This role is uniquely positioned to develop and lead the commercial function for Stargate driving business strategy, project delivery oversight oversight, and best practices essential for success.

Building the infrastructure to enable the future of AI requires tight control over project schedules, controls, costs, and capital planning. We need someone who can drive disciplined financial management across multi-billion dollar data center projects, ensuring alignment between scope, budget, and risk.

This role will focus on cost and schedule management, contracting, and commercial risk mitigation for Stargate deployments. You will be pivotal in establishing project plans, leading financial controls, and ensuring delivery on budget.

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:

• Own and manage Stargate’s build planning and forecasting, from early modeling through project closeout.

• Lead pre-construction budgeting, detailed cost modeling, and value engineering to optimize project delivery costs.

• Implement and maintain rigorous financial controls, cost assurance processes, and executive reporting structures.

• Develop and maintain full project forecasts across multiple hyperscale data center projects.

• When applicable, provide DC build cost estimates and risk assessments to support real estate acquisitions, site selection, and investment decisions.

• Benchmark construction costs, market rates, and risk factors across geographies to maintain real-time intelligence.

• Manage internal cost control staff and external cost consultants to drive programmatic consistency and excellence.

• Present cost and commercial risk assessments to executive leadership and recommend mitigation strategies.

• Partner cross-functionally with Legal, Finance, Real Estate, and Design & Construction teams to align commercial and technical priorities.

You Might Thrive In This Role If You:

• Have 10+ years of experience leading cost controls or capital program management for mission-critical, hyperscale, or complex commercial developments.

• Experience with schedule, planning, and cost forecasting

• Have deep expertise in cost modeling, contract negotiation, financial controls, and program governance.

• Have managed multi-billion dollar portfolios across multiple projects and regions.

• Have experience client-side (preferred) or within top general contractors or commercial consultancies.

• Are highly detail-oriented, analytical, and proactive in identifying and mitigating risks early.

• Communicate complex technical and financial information clearly to executive leadership.

• Thrive in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment and can drive structure and accountability across multiple stakeholders.

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.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

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.