---
title: 'White Space Manager at OpenAI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/white-space-manager-openai-san-francisco-zah3q1ycvgcq'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-05'
---

# White Space Manager at OpenAI

- **Company:** [OpenAI](https://feeny.ai/companies/openai)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $226k–$285k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-11-02
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/0ed12b35-0115-4ad3-81f5-ea1bb05c9f6b/application

**Skills:** Engineering Program Management, Technical Program Management, Data Center Deployment, Network Integration, Controls Coordination, Telemetry, Rack Deployment, Infrastructure Handoff, Risk Management, Dependency Mapping, Schedule Management, Vendor Management, Cross-functional Coordination, Hyperscale Data Centers, AI Infrastructure, HPC Environments, Colocation, Partner-delivered Data Center Programs, Non-production Network, Support-service Readiness

> Lead infrastructure programs for data center production and non-production network integration, controls coordination, and data hall deployment. Partner with cross-functional teams to translate strategy into executable plans, manage risks, and ensure readiness across electrical, mechanical, and network disciplines.

## Job description

## About the Team

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital and delivery partners, is building the infrastructure required to support frontier AI systems. The Data Center Engineering team defines repeatable technical standards and carries them through design, construction, commissioning, and operational readiness. The team works across data center facilities, power generation, compute infrastructure, construction, procurement, and operations to deliver reliable capacity at unprecedented scale and speed.

## About the Role

We are seeking a White Space Manager to own the planning, coordination, and readiness of data center white-space environments. You will connect facility delivery with compute deployment by coordinating rack layouts, electrical distribution, liquid and air cooling, structured cabling, containment, material flow, installation sequencing, and acceptance. This role is accountable for turning completed building infrastructure into safe, usable, operations-ready data halls that can receive and activate high-density AI systems. Role focus: Data hall fit-out, rack deployment, and operational readiness Travel: 50%

## Responsibilities

- Own white-space planning and readiness from design development through rack installation, testing, activation, and handoff to operations.
- Coordinate rack elevations, floor layouts, service clearances, containment, busway or RPP distribution, cabling pathways, and cooling connections.
- Translate compute deployment forecasts into space, power, cooling, network, labor, tooling, and material requirements.
- Develop installation sequences, readiness gates, turnover criteria, punch-list processes, and escalation paths across multiple workstreams.
- Partner with design, construction, commissioning, networking, hardware operations, safety, logistics, and vendors to resolve cross-system constraints.
- Verify field conditions against approved designs and maintain accurate as-built, capacity, asset, and readiness records.
- Identify risks to safe installation, energization, cooling availability, network readiness, or schedule and drive mitigations to closure.
- Create repeatable white-space standards, checklists, metrics, and operating mechanisms that scale across campuses.

## Qualifications

- 8+ years of experience delivering or operating data center white space, critical facilities, compute deployments, or mission-critical fit-outs.
- Strong understanding of racks, power distribution, structured cabling, airflow management, liquid cooling, controls interfaces, and deployment sequencing.
- Demonstrated ownership of installation readiness, field coordination, quality, safety, and handoff across several technical disciplines.
- Experience interpreting construction documents, rack layouts, one-lines, mechanical diagrams, schedules, and commissioning records.
- Ability to manage competing dependencies and make sound decisions in an active construction or production environment.
- Strong communication with engineers, contractors, vendors, deployment teams, and operations leaders.
- Willingness to travel regularly and spend sustained time at active project sites.

## Preferred Skills

- Experience with high-density GPU or AI infrastructure and direct-to-chip liquid cooling.
- Experience with DCIM, asset-management, commissioning, or deployment-readiness systems.
- Background in data center construction, commissioning, hardware deployment, or facilities operations.
- Bachelor's degree in engineering, construction management, operations, or a related technical field.

## 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/)

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