Compensation Programs & Operations Lead

About the Team OpenAI’s Compensation team helps attract, reward, and retain the people advancing our mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We develop compensation strategies and programs that support a rapidly evolving business, combining market insight, sound judgment, and thoughtful execution. We partner across People, Finance, Legal, and the business to deliver programs that employees and leaders can understand and trust. About the Role We’re looking for a Compensation Programs & Operations Lead to own the end-to-end program management of our cyclical and ad hoc compensation programs globally. You will turn compensation priorities into executable plans and lead delivery from initial scoping through launch, reconciliation, and continuous improvement. This is a senior, hands-on role for a compensation subject-matter expert who is energized by operations and E2E program ownership. You should bring experience across compensation operations analysis, compensation analysis, business partnership, and program management. Having done this work yourself, you understand the practical details behind compensation decisions and what it takes to implement them accurately. You will establish how our compensation programs run: the calendar, responsibilities, systems requirements, controls, communications, and handoffs that connect program design to the employee experience. You’ll partner closely with Compensation Partners, HR Business Partners, People Operations, People Technology, Finance, Payroll, Equity Administration, and Legal, creating clarity and driving execution as priorities evolve. In this role, you will: - Lead our compensation program portfolio. Own the integrated roadmap and calendar for cyclical and ad hoc programs, including compensation reviews, bonus and equity cycles, promotion-related compensation processes, recognition and retention initiatives, and new program launches. - Drive programs from planning through completion. Define scope, deliverables, milestones, accountable owners, dependencies, and resource needs. Coordinate work across teams, resolve blockers, and bring decisions and tradeoffs to the right owners early. - Translate compensation expertise into practical operations. Work with Compensation Partners and program owners to turn approved designs into clear eligibility rules, calculations, workflows, approval paths, and exception processes. Identify gaps and implementation risks before launch. - Stay close to the analysis and data. Build and review models, validate inputs and calculations, investigate discrepancies, and reconcile final outcomes. Be comfortable working directly in the details when a program needs it. - Build reliable execution controls. Establish quality checks, documented approvals, access controls, and audit trails. Coordinate accurate handoffs to Payroll, Equity Administration, and People Operations, with clear ownership through completion. - Shape compensation systems and tooling. Translate business needs into requirements, partner with People Technology on configuration and integrations, lead user acceptance testing, and prioritize improvements that reduce manual work and errors. - Manage incoming requests and changing priorities. Create a practical intake and prioritization process for ad hoc compensation initiatives. Make capacity, timing, and dependencies visible so urgent work can be delivered alongside recurring commitments. - Make programs easier to understand and use. Develop operating guides, manager resources, communications, and training. Equip Compensation Partners and other stakeholders to explain programs consistently and resolve questions efficiently. - Improve how the function operates. Measure accuracy, timeliness, manual effort, and stakeholder experience. Run post-cycle reviews and turn findings into simpler processes, stronger documentation, and effective automation. You might thrive in this role if you: - Have 10+ years of progressive compensation experience, including substantial responsibility for global compensation programs and operations in a complex, fast-growing organization. - Have performed the core responsibilities of a Compensation Operations Analyst, Compensation Analyst, Compensation Partner, and Compensation Program Manager, whether through separate roles or a combination of positions. - Bring deep compensation expertise across base pay, incentives, equity, market benchmarking, salary structures, and job architecture, and understand how these elements translate into day-to-day administration. - Have independently led complex compensation cycles and new initiatives, coordinating multiple teams from planning and analysis through implementation and reconciliation. - Are deliberately drawn to an operations-focused role. You enjoy making programs work, improving the details, and building processes that others can rely on. - Combine strong analytical skills with practical systems experience, including advanced spreadsheet modeling and hands-on work with Workday or comparable HR and compensation platforms. - Can establish priorities and drive progress when requirements are incomplete or changing, while making thoughtful tradeoffs about speed, accuracy, and capacity. - Communicate clearly with senior leaders and working teams, influence across functions, and make ownership and next steps explicit. - Exercise sound judgment with confidential information and bring a high standard of accuracy, accountability, and service to your work. 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 diffe