Contingent Workforce Program Manager

About the Team

OpenAI Finance is responsible for ensuring the organization is set up for success in pursuit of its mission. 

Within Finance, the Procurement team serves as a trusted advisor to business partners—optimizing investments, securing essential resources, and enabling OpenAI’s mission through efficient and effective procurement practices.

The Contingent Workforce Team is an integral part of the Procurement team, ensuring OpenAI acquires the right talent at the right time in the most efficient way possible. This team is obsessed with customer service, eliminating friction in processes and policies, and developing a best-in-class contingent workforce strategy that supports OpenAI’s rapid growth.

About the Role

We are looking for a highly experienced and hands-on Contingent Workforce Program Manager to help build, optimize, and scale our contingent workforce operations. This role will report to the Head of Contingent Workforce and will be instrumental in designing frictionless processes, developing clear policies, and managing a cutting-edge, internally led contingent workforce program.

You’ll operate across the full spectrum of contingent workforce expertise—from shaping long-term strategy to executing daily operational tasks. This role requires hands-on management of job requests, daily operation of the VMS (VNDLY), and real-time engagement in Slack to support workforce needs.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Obsess over customer service and ensure hiring managers experience a seamless, efficient, and frictionless process when engaging contingent workers.

• Create and refine processes and policies to reduce administrative burden, accelerate hiring timelines, and improve workforce efficiency.

• Manage end-to-end contingent workforce operations, including job request intake, approvals, onboarding, compliance, and offboarding.

• Serve as the primary point of contact for hiring managers and provide guidance on workforce solutions, internal policies, and staffing strategies.

• Oversee and optimize VNDLY (or similar Vendor Management Systems), ensuring efficiency in contingent workforce management.

• Own vendor relationships with staffing agencies, ensuring SLA compliance, negotiating terms, and driving continuous performance improvements.

• Leverage data-driven decision-making, tracking workforce trends, analyzing vendor performance, and producing actionable insights.

• Ensure compliance and risk mitigation, proactively addressing legal and policy considerations related to contingent labor.

• Innovate in workforce technology, identifying opportunities to improve automation, reporting, and workforce planning.

You might thrive in this role if you have: 

• 7+ years of progressive experience in contingent workforce management, with a proven track record in fast-moving and fast-scaling environments.

• Prior client-side experience is required—candidates must have been part of or directly managed a contingent workforce program within an enterprise organization. Internally managed program experience is a plus!

• Deep expertise in Contingent Workforce Management (CWM), including processes, policies, and best practices.

• Obsessive customer service mindset—you thrive on making processes seamless and efficient for stakeholders.

• Experience working with Vendor Management Systems (VMS)—prior VNDLY experience is a plus!

• A builder’s mindset—passionate about creating scalable processes and eliminating inefficiencies.

• Strong analytical acumen, including experience with workforce reporting, cost analysis, and performance tracking.

• A hands-on approach—willingness to roll up your sleeves and actively manage job requests, workforce operations, and vendor performance.

• Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to engage effectively across all levels—from hiring managers to finance, legal, and leadership 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 do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. 

OpenAI Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement

For US Based Candidates: Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy

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.