Lead, Technical Accounting (Compute Infrastructure)

About the Team

OpenAI Finance is responsible for ensuring the organization is set up for success in pursuit of its mission. The Technical Accounting team plays a crucial role in helping OpenAI navigate complex, judgmental, and rapidly evolving accounting matters with rigor and clarity. We aim to bring both technical excellence and strong business partnership to some of the most novel accounting questions in the industry.

About the Role

As Senior Manager, Technical Accounting, Compute Infrastructure, you will lead the evaluation, documentation, and operationalization of complex accounting matters related to OpenAI's compute infrastructure, strategic investments, and other non-routine business activities..

This role sits at the intersection of U.S. GAAP technical accounting, infrastructure strategy, financial reporting, controls, and cross-functional execution. Key areas may include cloud compute arrangements, data center and colocation arrangements, lease accounting under ASC 842, power purchase agreements, strategic investments, consolidation evaluations under ASC 810, financial instruments, and other emerging or non-standard arrangements.

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:

• Lead technical accounting analysis for complex, judgmental, and non-routine transactions under U.S. GAAP.

• Evaluate accounting implications for compute infrastructure arrangements, including cloud compute, data center, colocation, lease, PPA, infrastructure procurement, and related commercial arrangements.

• Partner with Controllership, Tax, Legal, FP&A, Procurement, Infrastructure, and other cross-functional teams to assess the accounting implications of new products, commercial arrangements, strategic transactions, and business initiatives.

• Prepare and review technical accounting memoranda, position papers, and other auditor-ready documentation.

• Translate technical accounting conclusions into operational guidance, including journal entries, close procedures, workpapers, disclosure considerations, and control requirements.

• Advise on accounting areas such as ASC 842 lease accounting, ASC 810 consolidation and VIE evaluations, financial instruments, strategic investments, and financial statement presentation.

• Help design scalable accounting processes, controls, policies, and documentation to support OpenAI's continued growth.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Enjoyment in solving complex accounting questions that do not have obvious answers and building scalable accounting frameworks for new and evolving business activities.

• Ability to move between technical U.S. GAAP research and practical business execution.

• Comfortability in partnering with both accounting teams and non-accounting stakeholders.

• Strong judgment, clear communication, and the ability to document conclusions in a way that supports audit, reporting, and operational needs.

• CPA or equivalent accounting qualification.

• 10+ years of progressive accounting experience.

• Prior public accounting experience at the manager or senior manager level.

• Strong technical accounting foundation under U.S. GAAP.

• Hands-on experience preparing or reviewing technical accounting memoranda and supporting accounting conclusions with external auditors.

• Experience with ASC 842 lease accounting.

• Experience with complex or non-routine accounting transactions involving multiple accounting standards.

• Ability to translate technical accounting conclusions into practical close, reporting, disclosure, and control requirements.

• Strong cross-functional partnership skills and ability to work with Legal, Finance, Tax, Procurement, Infrastructure, and business teams.

• Big 4 National Office, Accounting Advisory, or technical accounting consulting experience.

• Experience in a technology, infrastructure, cloud, data center, energy, or high-growth company environment.

• Experience with ASC 810 consolidation / VIE evaluations, ASC 321 / ASC 323 investments, financial instruments, PPAs, or strategic investments.

• Experience supporting pre-signature deal review or advising business partners before transaction execution.

• Experience building scalable technical accounting policies, processes, controls, and operating models.

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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