Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This role stands out in the SaaS landscape because it sits where software platform economics meet physical product realities. OpenAI is described as expanding into consumer hardware alongside its AI models and platform products, which creates a hybrid business profile that is still uncommon in SaaS. For finance leaders, that combination forces sharper thinking about how product decisions translate into unit economics, capital intensity, and lifecycle profitability in ways that pure subscription businesses often abstract away.
From a long-term SaaS career perspective, the remit signals deep exposure to the financial mechanisms that underpin product strategy: scenario modeling, margin and cash flow drivers, and cross-functional decision support with Product and Engineering. Even for professionals who remain in software-first companies, experience building rigorous product-level models and partnering tightly with technical leaders tends to transfer well into strategic finance, FP&A leadership, and portfolio planning roles across SaaS.
The listing points to a fit for someone who prefers being embedded with operators rather than working purely from consolidated financials. It should suit a senior finance professional who enjoys translating ambiguous roadmap inputs into decision-ready narratives, and who is comfortable owning detailed models that will be used to arbitrate tradeoffs across features, timing, and scale.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
About OpenAI
OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings the world’s best scientists, engineers, and business professionals together under one organization to accomplish this.
We're building the most advanced AI models and platforms, making it easy for developers and customers to benefit from AI via our suite of products.
OpenAI is expanding into consumer hardware to explore new human-computer interaction experiences. Success in hardware requires world-class financial stewardship across the entire product cost stack, from early design and sourcing decisions to scaled manufacturing and lifecycle cost optimization.
About the Team
The Strategic Finance team provides financial insights and guidance to support the organization's long-term goals and strategies. We partner across the business to allocate and deploy our resources for the highest impact outcomes.
About the Role
We are hiring a Lead, Hardware Product Finance to build and own the financial foundation that supports hardware product strategy across development stages.This role sits at the intersection of Product, Engineering, Design, and Finance, and is responsible for ensuring that every major hardware decision — from feature tradeoffs to performance targets to launch timing — is anchored in rigorous product-level economics.
This person will serve as the primary finance partner to Product, Engineering leadership, Supply Chain Operations and Manufacturing with full ownership of roadmap financial models, unit economics, SKU-level P&Ls, COGS, Inventory and margin trajectories. You will translate product strategy into financially grounded execution plans and help leadership optimize for profitability, capital efficiency, and long-term platform value.
We have a strong preference for candidates who can be based in our San Francisco HQ. 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 end-to-end hardware product financial models across the full lifecycle, from concept, prototyping, and launch to scale
Serve as the embedded finance partner to Product and Engineering leadership, guiding: feature tradeoffs, design-for-cost decisions, and performance targets vs. cost curves
Translate product roadmaps into financially grounded execution plans, integrating demand and pricing assumptions; yield and ramp profiles; mix, lifecycle margin, and portfolio profitability
Drive product-level profitability and capital efficiency, identifying cost inflection points; ROI tradeoffs across features and SKUs; and margin and risk implications of roadmap sequencing
Shape long-term hardware portfolio strategy, including product portfolio mix
Build and own end-to-end COGS models, incorporating BOM, yields, capacity, tariffs, logistics, and ramp curves.
Lead cost forecasting across product generations, including sensitivities, scenarios, and long-term cost curves.
Translate manufacturing and supply chain performance into actionable financial insights.
Own supply-chain-specific P&L and cash-flow forecasting, including inventory, working capital, and manufacturing readiness.
Partner with Procurement on supplier terms, pricing roadmaps, and multi-year cost-down strategies.
Evaluate contract manufacturing economics, tooling investments, capacity footprints, and multi-country supply chain options.
Drive financial rigor with engineering, identifying cost inflection points early in the product lifecycle.
Guide major decisions on vendor selection, manufacturing geography, capacity, and build plans.
You might thrive in this role if you have:
12+ years of progressive finance experience with significant exposure to hardware, manufacturing, or complex supply chain businesses
A passion for helping build world-class finance teams and driving business and financial outcomes, as measured on margin improvement, working capital efficiency, forecast accuracy, and execution of cost-reduction initiatives
A strong ability to critically evaluate opportunities and risks
Expert modeling skills with best-in-class attention to detail and unwavering commitment to accuracy
Exemplary ability to distill complex financial information into actionable insights
Excellent communication skills and “story telling” ability when presenting data insights
Strong enthusiasm for building the human-computer interface for the AI era.
A track record of building and leading high-performing teams.
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.
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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.
