Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
This Strategic Sourcing Lead role sits at a point in the SaaS ecosystem where product delivery depends heavily on external platforms. OpenAI is building and monetizing software products at global scale, and the remit spans ads technology plus consumer-facing verticals where vendor choices can determine measurement integrity, fraud exposure, and the reliability of attribution.
For a SaaS career, the differentiator here is proximity to commercialization infrastructure rather than a single procurement lane. Managing RFPs through negotiation, security review, contracting, and go live builds fluency in how SaaS companies operationalize product roadmaps through third parties. The focus on pricing models, optionality, and switching costs also develops durable skills in unit economics and platform dependency management that translate across growth-stage and enterprise SaaS environments.
The role is best suited to someone who prefers cross-functional influence over functional ownership alone, and who is comfortable being the coordination layer between product teams and external vendors. It will fit a professional who enjoys structured decision-making under ambiguity and who wants work that blends commercial depth with risk and compliance considerations, particularly where data sensitivity raises the bar for governance.
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
OpenAI Finance ensures the organization is commercially, operationally, and structurally set up to deliver on OpenAI’s mission at global scale.
The Strategic Sourcing team partners with Product, Engineering, Security, Legal, and Finance to ensure OpenAI acquires the critical external technology, platforms, and services needed to launch new products, operate safely, and monetize globally with speed, resilience, and commercial discipline.
This role is based in San Francisco (hybrid, 3 days/week in office).
About the Role
We are hiring a Strategic Sourcing Lead (Ads & Consumer Verticals) to manage the commercial execution and vendor strategy across this expanding footprint.
This role will serve as the day-to-day commercial owner for a growing portfolio of vendors across brand safety, measurement and attribution, fraud prevention and invalid traffic detection technologies, health and finance applications, enabling OpenAI to launch new capabilities, enter new markets, and scale monetization without accumulating excessive cost, risk, or operational fragility.
You will report to the Technology Strategic Sourcing Lead (Product Ecosystem & Monetization) and work closely with Product, Engineering, Security, Legal, Growth, and Finance leaders to translate product roadmaps into scalable, defensible vendor strategies.
In this role, you will:
Own sourcing and commercial strategy across OpenAI’s ads technology stack and consumer verticals with a focus on health and finance.
Run high-velocity, high-complexity deals end-to-end: from vendor strategy and RFPs through negotiation, security review, contracting, and go-live.
Partner with Product and Engineering to ensure external vendors can support new product launches without blocking delivery or increasing risk.
Build and manage a multi-vendor ads technology ecosystem, health and personal finance focussed tools, to support revenue growth, engagement, and cost optimization.
Structure contracts and pricing models that preserve optionality, support rapid scaling, and minimize long-term lock-in and switching costs.
Coordinate Security, Legal, and Privacy reviews, especially for regulated data flows (health, personal financial) and high-risk vendors.
Own vendor lifecycle management: onboarding, ramp-ups, SLA enforcement, renewals, and re-competitions as OpenAI’s volumes and risk profile evolve.
Act as the control plane between fast-moving product teams and external dependencies, ensuring speed without sacrificing governance, compliance, or economics.
You might thrive in this role if you:
Have 6+ years of experience leading technology partnerships, sourcing, or commercial negotiations in a high-growth, product-driven environment.
Have demonstrated strong cross-functional leadership and are able to align Product, Engineering, Legal, Security, and Finance around complex, high-stakes decisions.
Are comfortable operating in regulated or high-risk domains (personal financial, health, payments, identity, data etc).
Have a track record of negotiating commercial, technical, and data-driven agreements with technology vendors.
Enjoy moving quickly in ambiguity while maintaining commercial discipline, compliance, and risk awareness.
Have strong analytical skills to evaluate pricing models, volume ramps, and vendor risk in the context of revenue and product growth.
Bring an ownership mindset—you independently drive deals, resolve blockers, and close outcomes that materially impact product launches and revenue.
Have a desire to accelerate OpenAI’s mission by enabling better vendor partnerships, faster launches, and more effective execution at scale.
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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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.
