Device Safety & Risk Operations Specialist

OpenAI

Device Safety & Risk Operations Specialist developing safety operating models for consumer hardware at OpenAI. Involves defining workflows and operational requirements for product safety incidents.

Posted 6/27/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesSeniorLead💰 $252,000 - $335,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Assembly

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Build the end-to-end safety and risk operating model for new consumer hardware, from early requirements through launch and early-life operations.
Define incident taxonomies, severity levels, decision rights, escalation criteria, response pathways, and closure standards.
Develop operational playbooks for product-safety incidents, critical escalations, safety advisories, corrective actions, and other high-risk events.
Design workflows for regulated and privacy-sensitive cases, including restricted handling, evidence requirements, auditability, and partner escalation.
Translate safety and operational needs into requirements for tooling, case management, data access, monitoring, logging, and automation.
Establish clear ownership boundaries across Product, Engineering, Legal, Privacy, Product Policy, Support, Product Quality, and other operational partners.
Build launch-readiness plans, tabletop exercises, training, quality controls, reporting, and post-launch monitoring.
Use operational data, customer signals, product telemetry, and case outcomes to identify patterns and improve upstream products and systems.
Determine where AI and automation can improve triage, evidence assembly, consistency, and response while preserving appropriate human judgment.
Stand up priority workflows, operate them through launch and early-life stabilization, and transition them into durable homes across USRO and partner teams.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Have 8+ years of relevant experience in device safety, product safety, consumer hardware operations, technical program management, or a related field.
Have built a complex safety or risk program from an ambiguous starting point through launch and scaled operation.
Understand the realities of handling high-severity incidents, regulated workflows, sensitive customer information, and time-critical escalations.
Can translate product, engineering, legal, privacy, and policy constraints into workflows that operational teams can execute.
Are technically fluent and can reason through data flows, telemetry, access controls, audit logs, case systems, automation, and failure modes.
Use data to assess workflow health, identify emerging patterns, evaluate quality, and make risk-based decisions.
Can establish clear accountability across teams with overlapping responsibilities and different risk tolerances.
Know how to balance launch speed with safety controls, monitoring, rollback criteria, and longer-term system development.
Communicate clearly with operational, technical, legal, and executive audiences when evidence is incomplete or tradeoffs are difficult.
Are highly practical and willing to build the workflow, not only define the strategy.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
401(k) retirement plan with employer match
Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
Mental health and wellness support
Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
Relocation support for eligible employees
Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

incident taxonomyrisk program developmentdata accessmonitoringloggingautomationworkflow designcase managementevidence assemblytriage

Soft Skills

communicationaccountabilitypracticalitycollaborationproblem-solvingdecision-makingadaptabilityleadershipcritical thinkingorganizational skills