--- title: 'IT Software Architect, SaaS Enablement and Governance at OpenAI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/it-software-architect-saas-enablement-and-governance-openai-san-francisco-h48tex1zdkza' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-05' --- # IT Software Architect, SaaS Enablement and Governance at OpenAI - **Company:** [OpenAI](https://feeny.ai/companies/openai) - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Compensation:** $266k–$445k - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-08-14 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/1e68e5f6-6bda-4d11-89fd-4be731077031 ## Job description ## About the Team The SaaS and Software Governance team sits within Corporate IT and helps OpenAI scale from startup-speed tooling to mature enterprise architecture. The team owns practical governance for software, SaaS, integrations, APIs, identity, data access, and agent-enabled workflows, with a mandate to improve security, reduce software sprawl, and help business teams move faster through better foundations. ## About the Team OpenAI is scaling from an emerging, high-velocity startup into a mature enterprise operating model. The IT Software Architect will help shape the software, SaaS, Data integration, and agent-enabled architecture that lets the company move quickly while improving security, compliance, data quality, and customer, partner, and employee experience. This role is not a traditional ivory-tower architecture function. It is a hands-on governance and enablement role that partners with business teams, IT operations, Security, Procurement, Business Platforms, Applied teams and Data Engineering to guide software decisions, reduce unmanaged sprawl, and build reusable enterprise foundations. ## Why This Role Matters OpenAI’s software footprint is expanding rapidly across SaaS, internally built tools, agents, integrations, APIs, third-party platforms, and application systems that OpenAI. The company needs a stronger tools architecture layer that can help teams make good decisions early, avoid duplicate tools, govern sensitive data and identities, and identify where OpenAI should build instead of buy. The person in this role will help turn software governance from an approval checkpoint into an enterprise capability: a system that improves speed, reliability, security, and business outcomes. ## What You'll Do - Own the target architecture for enterprise software, SaaS, integrations, APIs, and agent-enabled business systems across Corporate IT. Drive deprecation and consolidate targets for enterprise software. - Build lightweight governance patterns that guide teams before software and integration decisions become hard to unwind. - Create architecture standards for identity, access, data movement, API usage, admin rights, auditability, observability, and vendor integration. - Partner with Security to ensure software architecture addresses SSO, SCIM, MFA, privileged access, non-human identities, secrets, token storage, data residency, encryption, retention, and incident response readiness. - Partner with Procurement and Finance to evaluate renewals, rationalization opportunities, enterprise agreements, and build-versus-buy decisions. - Partner deeply with application verticals such as GTM, Finance, Legal, HR, Research, Product, and Operations teams to evaluate agentic business workflows and translate them into scalable enterprise system patterns. - Review proposed SaaS and internally built tools for overlap, risk, integration quality, ownership, lifecycle, supportability, and long-term fit. - Develop reusable architecture blueprints for common capabilities such as intake, workflow, approvals, knowledge management, customer/partner 360, data integration, reporting, content management, learning, surveys, and collaboration. - Help define where OpenAI-native GPT or agent-built solutions should replace or enable point SaaS tools. - Create clear decision records and architecture artifacts that are understandable by business leaders, engineers, security reviewers, and procurement partners. - Drive software catalog maturity by connecting tool inventory, business owner, system owner, integration path, data classification, access model, renewal, risk posture, and support model. Core Architecture Domains - SaaS governance and software catalog maturity - Enterprise integration architecture, including APIs, event flows, middleware, and system-of-record boundaries - Identity, access, and admin model design across internal and external users - Data architecture for SaaS, customer, supplier, employee, partner, product, consumption, and connected business models. - Agentic workflow architecture and GPT-built replacement patterns - Vendor architecture reviews and enterprise agreement leverage across strategic platforms. - Security, compliance, ITGC, audit evidence, and operational readiness - Support model design, ownership, SLAs, escalation paths, and lifecycle management ## What You'll Bring - 10+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, business systems architecture, IT architecture, SaaS governance, integration architecture, or a related technical leadership role. - Strong understanding of SaaS operating models, software lifecycle management, software asset management, and vendor/platform governance. - Experience designing integrations across systems, experience in large scale SaaS such as CRM, ERP and Marketplace platforms. - Practical knowledge of identity and access patterns including SSO, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, RBAC/ABAC, privileged admin models, service accounts, OAuth apps, and token governance. - Ability to evaluate software from multiple angles: business value, architecture fit, security posture, data exposure, cost, supportability, user experience, and vendor strategy. - Comfort operating in ambiguity, building structure where little exists, and influencing senior stakeholders without relying only on formal authority. - Ability to write clear architecture decision records, governance standards, system diagrams, business cases, and executive-ready recommendations. - Strong partner orientation: able to help teams move faster while raising the quality of decisions. - Curiosity about AI-native enterprise architecture and where GPT, Codex, and agentic workflows can replace or enable traditional SaaS patterns. ## Preferred Experience - Experience scaling IT or business systems from startup-stage tooling into mature enterprise architecture. - Experience with software rationalization, SaaS enablement and deprecation, vendor consolidation, or enterprise license optimization. - Experience with architecting systems in a high-growth environment. - Experience building governance for internally developed tools, low-code/no-code platforms, agents, or employee-built automation. - Experience working closely with Security, GRC, Legal, Procurement, and Finance on cross-functional risk and control programs. ## 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](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf). 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. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through [this form](https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA). No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this [link](https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241). [OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy](https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf) 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. ## About OpenAI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company with a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. - **Entity Type**: Private – structured as a nonprofit parent (OpenAI Foundation) governing a for-profit public benefit corporation (OpenAI Group). The company has confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC, signaling a potential future IPO. - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA - **Founded**: 2015 - **Founders**: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, John Schulman, Wojciech Zaremba, and others ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Artificial intelligence research and deployment - **Target customers**: B2B (enterprises via API and platform), B2C (ChatGPT users), and developers (API, open-source models) - **Mission**: To ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI systems that are generally smarter than humans – benefits all of humanity. ## Products & Services - **[ChatGPT](https://openai.com/chatgpt)**: Conversational AI assistant available via web and mobile, used by consumers and integrated into enterprise workflows. - **[GPT-4 API](https://openai.com/product)**: Large language model accessed via API for developers to build AI-powered applications (text generation, summarization, code assistance, etc.). - **[DALL-E](https://openai.com/dall-e-3)**: Image generation model that creates images from natural language descriptions. - **[Whisper](https://openai.com/research/whisper)**: Open-source speech recognition system. - **[OpenAI Agents](https://openai.com/)**: Emerging product category focused on autonomous AI agents that can perform tasks on behalf of users (announced June 2026). ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed in the provided sources. Widely reported in the press at ~$300 billion as of early 2026 (post-funding round), but this figure is not confirmed by OpenAI’s official materials. - **Key Metric**: Total funding exceeds $13 billion from Microsoft and other investors. The company has also confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC (see [openai.com](https://openai.com/) – “Confidential submission of draft S-1”). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Microsoft (strategic partner and largest investor), with additional participation from Thrive Capital, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others. - **Growth Signals**: Active hiring with 721 open roles posted; expansion into agent-based products; confidential IPO filing; continued deployment of frontier models. ## Competitive Advantages - **First-mover & brand recognition**: ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in history, establishing OpenAI as the household name in generative AI. - **Research leadership**: Consistently publishes cutting-edge research (GPT-4, DALL-E 3, Whisper, etc.) and attracts top AI talent. - **Compute & infrastructure**: Exclusive partnership with Microsoft provides massive cloud computing resources (Azure) for training and inference. - **Unique governance structure**: The nonprofit parent ensures mission alignment (AGI benefiting humanity) while the for-profit arm can raise capital and scale products. ## Strategic Focus - **Safe AGI development**: Continued emphasis on safety research, alignment, and responsible deployment (e.g., safety systems, model provenance). - **Enterprise expansion**: Growing ChatGPT Enterprise and API offerings for businesses. - **Agentic AI**: Building autonomous agents that can “transform work” (announced June 2026). - **IPO preparation**: Confidential S-1 filing indicates intent to go public, which will require increased financial transparency and governance maturity. ## Why Work Here - **Culture & values**: OpenAI’s stated values include “Humanity first,” “Act with humility,” “Feel the AGI,” and “Ship joy.” Operating principles emphasize agency, creativity, rapid iteration, and intense focus. - **Benefits**: Competitive health insurance, mental healthcare support, 24-week paid birth-parent leave (plus 20 weeks for other parents), generous PTO, annual learning & development stipend, daily meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), and a domestic conference budget. - **Work environment**: Hybrid/office-based (San Francisco headquarters). The company offers a residency program for researchers and engineers transitioning into AI. - **Impact**: Employees work directly on frontier AI models that shape the industry and society. The mission-driven nature attracts talent passionate about AGI’s societal implications. ## Sources 1. [OpenAI About Page](https://openai.com/about/) 2. [OpenAI Careers Page](https://openai.com/careers/) 3. [OpenAI Job Search](https://openai.com/careers/search) 4. [OpenAI Homepage](https://openai.com/) ## Other roles at OpenAI - [Product Marketing Lead, Verticals](https://feeny.ai/job/product-marketing-lead-verticals-openai-san-francisco-gr14px0thhk0) — San Francisco, CA - [Forward Deployed Engineering Manager, Financial Services](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineering-manager-financial-services-openai-new-york-12pj7jgmdk3t) — New York, NY - [Executive Business Partner, EMEA (Strategy)](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-business-partner-emea-strategy-openai-london-994tph608a2r) — London, United Kingdom - [Sales Manager, Startups | New Business UK&I](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-manager-startups-new-business-uk-i-openai-london-w0tqrgw7mzms) — London, United Kingdom - [Sales Development Leader, Singapore](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-development-leader-singapore-openai-singapore-4h8wk13ks5p8) — Singapore - [AI Deployment Manager - Builder](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-deployment-manager-builder-openai-singapore-zenefcsbjerr) — Singapore - [Technical Program Manager, Capacity Analytics & Tooling](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-capacity-analytics-tooling-openai-san-francisco-1h1atz8ka5gq) — San Francisco, CA - [Technical Program Manager, Research Compute Services](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-research-compute-services-openai-san-francisco-49tb2pwpnhea) — San Francisco, CA - [Technical Program Manager, Global Infrastructure Planning](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-global-infrastructure-planning-openai-san-francisco-jxbew9w0b55t) — San Francisco, CA - [Technical Program Manager, Compute Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-compute-infrastructure-openai-san-francisco-p48nrtxk8479) — San Francisco, CA