Senior Program Manager, Consumer Device Safety Operations

We are looking for a senior program manager to build the safety, quality, and risk operations supporting a new category of consumer devices. You will translate ambiguous product risks and evolving requirements into practical operating models, workflows, escalation paths, launch-readiness plans, and cross-functional decision-making. This is a foundational role: the systems you build will shape how OpenAI launches, monitors, and improves a new category of consumer devices safely at scale.

Responsibilities

Lead strategic operational builds for device-safety and product-quality priorities from problem statement to implemented operating model, including scope, owners, milestones, risks, success measures, and execution cadence; Define intake, severity criteria, decision rights, evidence requirements, escalation paths, response standards, closure criteria, and post-incident learning for high-risk cases; Translate product, engineering, quality, regulatory, legal, privacy, policy, support, and operational requirements into practical workflows, clear ownership, playbooks, and measurable operating standards; Build launch-readiness plans, training, quality controls, reporting, monitoring, and early-life response mechanisms; Coordinate across Product, Hardware and Software Engineering, Product Safety, Product Quality, Legal, Privacy, Product Policy, Support, Logistics, vendors, and USRO to resolve dependencies and keep critical work moving; Use operational data, dashboards, customer signals, product telemetry, case-management systems, AI tools, and qualitative evidence to investigate issues, measure performance, identify patterns, and improve workflows; Drive critical escalations and cross-functional decisions to closure with clear context, accountable owners, documented decisions, and durable follow-through; Create the mechanisms that make complex programs run well, including roadmaps, decision logs, risk registers, operating reviews, status updates, and executive communication; Identify where AI tools, automation, lightweight systems, or simpler workflows can improve speed, consistency, investigation, and quality while preserving appropriate human judgment; Stand up priority workflows, operate them through launch and stabilization, and transition mature capabilities into durable homes across USRO and partner teams

Requirements

8+ years of experience in program management, technical program management, product operations, product safety, quality assurance, regulatory operations, incident management, healthcare operations, or another complex, high-accountability operational field; Technically and analytically fluent enough to reason about data flows, telemetry, logs, dashboards, access controls, case systems, automation, and failure modes, even if not writing production code; Track record of taking complex, ambiguous, and unstructured work from problem framing through product launch, operational readiness, and scaled operation; Ability to create clarity across many moving pieces without losing the few decisions, risks, and dependencies that matter most; Sound judgment in high-severity or sensitive situations and ability to make practical, risk-based decisions with incomplete information; Ability to build trust and drive alignment across teams without direct authority while keeping ownership, accountability, and escalation paths clear; Clear and direct communication with technical, operational, legal, policy, and executive audiences, especially when tradeoffs are sensitive or evidence is incomplete; Highly practical and willing to build and run the first version of a workflow, learn from real cases, and improve the system over time; Operate calmly in a fast-moving environment, learn new domains quickly, and adjust priorities without losing rigor or follow-through; Strong discretion, judgment, and resilience; comfort with exposure to sensitive or concerning material

Nice to have

Experience with consumer hardware, connected devices, medical devices, healthcare technology, aerospace, robotics, mobility, wearables, or another technically complex or regulated physical product; Experience with device launches, product quality, field incidents, safety-sensitive customer escalations, repairs, warranty, returns, reverse logistics, or privacy-sensitive sensor and diagnostic data; A technical degree or equivalent experience partnering closely with hardware, software, data, or systems engineering teams; Experience with vendor operations, quality-assurance programs, regulated-product operations, incident response, workflow automation, or AI-assisted operations