Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This GRC Program Manager role stands out in SaaS because it sits at the intersection of cloud product delivery and public sector authorization, where compliance frameworks like FedRAMP and RMF materially shape how software is designed, documented, and operated. In regulated SaaS, security assurance is not a supporting function but a gating mechanism for market access, and the listing signals direct ownership of ATO outcomes across multiple government customers and restricted deployment environments.
For a long-term SaaS career, this kind of program leadership builds durable leverage: translating policy into implementable controls, creating audit-ready artifacts, and coordinating engineers, assessors, and internal stakeholders around a shared security baseline. Experience improving compliance processes also maps well to scaling SaaS operations, where repeatability, evidence quality, and control effectiveness become ongoing product constraints rather than one-time projects.
The role is best suited to professionals who prefer structured problem solving in ambiguous requirements, and who are comfortable being the point person during assessments while maintaining strong working relationships with engineering. It fits someone who values rigorous documentation and practical risk decisions, and who wants to specialize in bringing modern cloud services into high-assurance government contexts.
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 the Team
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) is foundational to Security delivering mission outcomes at OpenAI. We’re excited about building creative solutions to ambiguous security requirements and delivering new technologies to mission critical customers. The GRC team provides security and engineering expertise to ensure our customers’ most critical and stringent requirements are met. We are technical in what we build but are operational in how we do our work, and are committed to obtaining, expanding, and maintaining Authorizations to Operate (ATOs) for critical systems while fostering a collaborative and execution-driven culture.
About the Role
Our technologies support some of the most important and impactful work in the world, including our strategic and high-impact customers in the public sector. As a GRC Program Manager, you’ll play a pivotal role in achieving US government (USG) ATOs and compliance frameworks, including but not limited to FedRAMP and Department of War (DoW),for OpenAI products and support agency-specific ATOs for systems deployed in highly regulated and secure environments. You’ll work closely with engineers, internal stakeholders, and external assessors to design, document, and implement security controls that meet stringent compliance requirements. Your creativity and execution-focused approach will be critical in navigating complex challenges while maintaining the trust of our stakeholders.
We’re looking for people who bring:
Proven experience in obtaining and maintaining a FedRAMP ATO and agency specific ATOs in highly restricted environments, within government or regulated sectors.
A deep understanding of USG security frameworks and policies (e.g., NIST, RMF, FedRAMP).
Ability to communicate technical concepts to diverse audiences, including engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
Exceptional technical program management skills, with the ability to multitask and deliver large complex programs under pressure.
This role is based in Washington, DC. 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:
Drive the ATO process for FedRAMP and across multiple government clients in restricted environments with minimal oversight.
Collaborate with engineering teams to interpret security requirements and implement controls that balance compliance with operational needs.
Create clear, concise, and technically accurate documentation, including System Security Plans (SSPs), risk assessments, and architecture diagrams.
Act as a subject matter expert during audits and assessments, representing the organization with credibility and expertise.
Continuously refine processes to improve the efficiency and quality of compliance efforts.
You might thrive in this role if you:
An active US security clearance.
5+ years of compliance experience in positions involving information security, data security, or infrastructure or network security.
Familiarity with deployment models, including to cloud platforms (Azure, AWS) and the underlying infrastructure primitives (Kubernetes, Terraform).
Strong familiarity with core security concepts and technologies, such as authentication, encryption, vulnerability management, and audit logging.
The ability to work collaboratively and effectively in a cross-functional team environment.
Thrive in dynamic environments and can navigate ambiguity with ease.
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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