Description
We're hiring a Sr. Manager, Customs and Trade Operations to lead OpenAI's global import customs strategy and operating model. This is a senior role with broad scope across hardware sourcing, development-stage materials, supplier onboarding, landed-cost design, broker strategy, and cross-border execution.
You will refine how OpenAI governs import classification, customs valuation, country of origin, importer structure, broker operating models, documentation standards, and shipment decisioning in a way that supports the company's pace of technical development and global operations.
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:
- Refine the strategy and operating model for OpenAI's import customs program, embedding customs, tariff, and cross-border considerations into sourcing, development-stage materials, supplier operations, and logistics.
- Own governance for HTS classification, customs valuation, and country of origin, including decision quality, substantiation, supplier data requirements, broker handoff standards, escalation paths, and reusable knowledge.
- Partner with Engineering, Procurement and Strategic Finance to build durable landed-cost, tariff-impact, and importer-structure decision models that support global sourcing and planning.
- Lead broker strategy and operating standards across customs brokers, freight forwarders, and trade-advisory partners, including performance management, escalation management, and execution quality.
- Build and scale import documentation, recordkeeping, and supplier-onboarding requirements for customs-critical data, including commercial invoices, packing lists, broker packets, entry support, prototype claims, and audit-ready files.
- Partner with technical and operations teams to support compliant cross-border movement of development-stage materials and related operational workflows.
- Establish customs-related policies, SOPs, training, metrics, SLAs, and escalation paths that reduce avoidable friction and improve execution quality across the import lifecycle.
- Partner with Legal, Tax, and Business on origin analysis, tariff monitoring, trade controversy, importer setup, and new market entry.
- Build internal tooling and AI-enabled workflows that improve triage, document review, knowledge retrieval, recurring decision support, operational reporting, and overall program scale.