Senior Global Leave & Accommodations Manager

About the Team

Our Benefits team is dedicated to building thoughtful, people-first programs that support the well-being of every OpenAI employee. We focus on designing and scaling benefits that reflect our values, meet diverse needs, and enable our team to thrive both at work and outside of it. As we continue to grow, we're committed to ensuring our programs remain accessible, equitable, and deeply supportive of all employees-including during life's most critical moments.

About the Role

We're seeking a compassionate, detail-oriented Global Leave & Accommodations Manager to oversee and evolve our leave of absence and workplace accommodations programs. You'll serve as our in-house expert on all things related to medical, parental, disability, and personal leave, as well as ADA and other workplace accommodations. You'll partner closely with employees, managers, Legal, and HRBPs to ensure OpenAI delivers a seamless, supportive, and legally compliant experience throughout an employee's leave journey. This is an individual contributor role that reports to our Global Head of Benefits.

Your Key Responsibilities:

• Evaluate and optimize global leave of absence policies and processes to ensure consistency, compliance, and scalability, while identifying opportunities to enhance employee experience and operational alignment across regions.

• Own and manage the end-to-end leave of absence process, including medical, parental, personal, military, and other global leaves.

• Oversee our accommodations process, including ergonomic and disability-related requests, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations (e.g., ADA, FEHA).

• Serve as the primary point of contact for employees and managers navigating leave or accommodation requests.

• Collaborate with Legal, HRBPs, and People Operations to ensure policies, documentation, and workflows are compliant, clear, and employee-friendly.

• Partner with Payroll and HRIS teams to ensure accurate and timely pay for employees on leave, including coordination of statutory benefits, company top-ups, and vendor-reported pay events.

• Identify areas for improvement and implement operational enhancements to increase equity, clarity, and efficiency in our leave and accommodations programs.

• Track and analyze relevant data to identify trends and ensure alignment with organizational goals.

• Support vendor relationships and coordinate with third-party administrators as needed.

We're Seeking:

• 7+ years of experience managing leave and/or accommodations in a fast-paced, multi-state, global organization.

• Deep knowledge of leave and accommodations laws, including FMLA, ADA, CFRA, PDL, and other relevant federal and state legislation.

• Empathy-driven approach with strong interpersonal and communication skills.

• Experience improving or building programs from the ground up, including process design and documentation.

• Proven ability to handle sensitive situations with discretion, professionalism, and care.

• Experience working closely with Legal and HRBPs on complex or nuanced cases.

• Knowledge of Workday or similar HRIS is a plus.

Workplace & Location

This role is based in our San Francisco or New York City office. We are not considering remote applications for this role. We offer relocation support to new employees, and we use a hybrid work model: three days in the office per week with optional work from home on Thursdays and Fridays.

Our open-plan offices have height-adjustable desks, conference rooms, phone booths, well-stocked kitchens full of snacks and drinks, spaces for socializing, and more.

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.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. 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.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

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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.

Compensation Range: $240K