Inventory Manager - Robotics

About Team

Our Robotics team is focused on unlocking general-purpose robotics and advancing toward AGI-level intelligence in dynamic, real-world environments. Working across the full model and systems stack, we integrate cutting-edge hardware and software to explore a broad range of robotic form factors. We strive to seamlessly blend high-level AI capabilities with the physical constraints of real-world systems to improve people’s lives.

About Role

We are building a supply-chain organization capable of supporting our transition from laboratory-scale development to factory-scale operations. We are looking for an Inventory Manager to build and operate our inventory function from the ground up.

This is a highly hands-on role. In the near term, you may start with an empty room and be responsible for determininga what racks, shelving, bins, labels, scanners, workflows, and systems are needed to turn it into a functional stockroom. You will receive material, organize inventory, perform counts, move parts between buildings, resolve discrepancies, and establish the processes others will eventually follow.

As we grow, you will have the opportunity to develop this foundation into a full-scale, multi-site factory inventory operation. You may hire and manage contractors or onsite inventory administrators, but this role will initially have a significant individual-contributor component and will remain accountable for day-to-day execution.

This role owns inventory and internal logistics. It does not own purchasing, production planning, or inbound and outbound supplier logistics.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA and requires in-person presence 5 days a week.

In this role you will:

- Build inventory operations from the ground up across various OpenAI facilities.

- Design and set up stockrooms, receiving areas, and material-storage locations, including selecting racks, shelving, bins, carts, labeling equipment, scanners, and other infrastructure.

- Personally execute core inventory activities, including receiving, labeling, putaway, picking, kitting, issuing, cycle counting, transfers, returns, and inventory adjustments.

- Establish practical receiving procedures that ensure incoming material is identified, recorded, inspected or quarantined when appropriate, and made available quickly.

- Hire, train, and manage contractors or onsite inventory administrators as volume and facility needs grow.

- Create location structures, naming conventions, barcode workflows, material-status controls, and standard work.

- Maintain accurate visibility into what inventory exists, where it is located, and whether it is available for use.

- Establish and maintain cycle-counting and physical-inventory programs, investigate discrepancies, identify root causes, and implement corrective actions.

- Own internal logistics and material movement between company facilities, including transfer processes, delivery schedules, chain of custody, transaction accuracy, and reconciliation.

- Develop appropriate controls for serialized, lot-controlled, high-value, consigned, returned, obsolete, and nonconforming material.

- Serve as the business owner for inventory tools and workflows.

- Partner with the systems team to translate operational needs into requirements, prioritize improvements, test new functionality, and drive adoption.

- Create procedures and training that allow inventory operations to be replicated consistently at new facilities.

- Identify inventory risks, shortages, excess material, unidentified material, and process breakdowns before they disrupt operations.

You might thrive in this role if you:

- 4+ years of experience in inventory management, warehouse operations, materials operations, internal logistics, or a related field.

- Experience building or substantially improving an inventory operation, not only working within an established one.

- Strong working knowledge of receiving, putaway, picking, kitting, cycle counting, material transfers, inventory reconciliation, and physical inventory controls.

- Willingness to work directly in stockrooms, receiving areas, laboratories, and manufacturing spaces.

- Ability to move comfortably between strategic design and hands-on execution.

- Experience selecting and implementing physical inventory infrastructure such as racks, shelving, bins, labeling systems, barcode scanners, and material-handling equipment.

- Familiarity with ERP, WMS, MES, or inventory-management systems and the transactions required to maintain accurate inventory.

- Willingness to travel regularly among company facilities.

What success looks like:

Within the first 6 months, you will have:

- Turned empty or informal storage areas into organized, functional stockrooms.

- Established consistent receiving, storage, counting, and material-transfer processes across active facilities.

- Created reliable visibility into what inventory exists, where it is located, and whether it is available for use.

- Implemented practical location controls, labeling standards, transaction procedures, and cycle counting.

- Built a reliable inter-building logistics process with clear ownership and traceability.

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 https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

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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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.