Community Engagement Lead - Industrial Compute

About the Team:

OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings the world’s best scientists, engineers, and business professionals into one lab together to accomplish this.

In pursuit of this mission, and in close collaboration with our capital partners, OpenAI is embarking on a journey to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Industrial Compute team is central to this mission, setting the core infra strategy and implementing this vision. From site selection to the buildout process, this team sits at the intersection of commercial, technical, strategy, and operations, interacting with teams and executives inside and outside of OpenAI.

About the Role

The Community Engagement Lead will be the primary bridge between OpenAI and the communities where we develop data centers. This role ensures that OpenAI builds strong, trust-based relationships with local stakeholders, communicates proactively about our projects, and integrates community priorities into our development approach. The role spans engagement, communications, and reputation management.

As OpenAI scales the physical backbone of advanced AI, community acceptance and partnership are not optional; they are mission-critical. This role ensures that communities understand what we are building, why it matters, and how they can meaningfully benefit from it. The Community Engagement Lead will proactively shape dialogue, surface concerns before they escalate, and embed community priorities into how projects are planned, communicated, and delivered.

Operating at the intersection of development, communications, government affairs, and operations, this role owns community relationships end-to-end: from first introduction through construction and long-term operations. Success means reduced friction, stronger partnerships, and communities that see OpenAI not as a distant technology company, but as a responsible, long-term neighbor.

Note: This role requires being based in or willing to relocate to the communities where OpenAI is developing data center sites, as regular in-person engagement with local stakeholders is essential.

*must be open to at least 3-5 days per week onsite at one of our data centers.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain relationships with local leaders, community organizations, NGOs, and residents.

• Develop and execute community engagement strategies for new and existing sites.

• Translate community feedback into actionable guidance to inform project decisions.

• Represent OpenAI in public forums, hearings, and community events.

• Support economic development on incentive compliance and community benefits.

• Partner with the Environmental Lead on communicating environmental stewardship and sustainability efforts.

• Develop proactive communications to address concerns, highlight benefits, and reduce risk of opposition, including during site selection and pre-development phases.

• Monitor community sentiment and advise executives on risks and opportunities.

• Create a community engagement playbook that can scale across geographies.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in community affairs, public engagement, or corporate communications.

• Proven track record engaging diverse community stakeholders for large infrastructure or technology projects.

• Strong public speaking and facilitation skills in high-stakes environments.

• Ability to manage sensitive political and reputational issues.

• Experience integrating community benefits (workforce, education, infrastructure support) into development strategies.

• Collaborative and adaptable, with experience working across government, community, and corporate teams.

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.

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.

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