Technical Operations Analyst, User Safety & Risk Operations

Openai
San Francisco, CA
HybridCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Aimed at mid-level to senior data professionals with experience in building scalable data systems, who thrive in collaborative environments focused on user safety and risk mitigation.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with experience building and maintaining production data pipelines and Airflow DAGs
    — “Build, maintain, and monitor production data pipelines and Airflow DAGs”
  • Individuals who can translate ambiguous operational needs into dependable data products
    — “Experience partnering with non-engineers to turn ambiguous needs into dependable data products”
  • Professionals who have a practical understanding of data modeling and lineage documentation
    — “Build and maintain reusable data models, reporting cubes, and shared operational reporting metrics”

Things to consider

  • Exposure to sensitive content is a requirement, which may not suit all candidates
    — “This role may involve exposure to sensitive or concerning content”
  • The role requires a hybrid work model with three days in the office
    — “San Francisco based with three days in the office”

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience with building and debugging scheduled pipelines used by others
    — “Have built and debugged scheduled pipelines that other people depend on”
  • Showcase ability to trace metrics back to their inputs and explain limitations
    — “Ability to trace a surprising metric back to its inputs and explain what downstream users can and can’t conclude”
  • Emphasize work with operational teams and engineers to deliver data products
    — “Working with operational teams and engineers, you’ll turn data from different systems into reliable sources”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • building and maintaining data pipelines and shared datasets
  • working with operational teams to understand data needs
  • setting up data quality and freshness checks
  • documenting data sources and transformations
Typical background
strong SQL skills and practical experience with Python

Skills & requirements

Required

Data Pipeline DevelopmentAirflow DagsData ModelingData Quality ChecksData Lineage Documentation

Preferred

AirflowData Automation

About the role

Original posting from Openai via Ashby

About the Team

At OpenAI, our User Safety & Risk Operations (USRO) team helps protect our products and users from abuse, fraud, safety risks, and other forms of misuse. We translate real-world user and operational signals into timely decisions, practical interventions, and improvements to our products and systems.

This role sits on the Risk Incubation & Systems (RIS) team, which investigates emerging risks, builds data and automation capabilities, and develops workflows that can scale into durable operational homes.

About the Role

You’ll build and maintain the data pipelines and shared datasets that teams across USRO use for analysis, measurement, and automation. Working with operational teams and engineers, you’ll turn data from different systems into reliable sources that colleagues can use in their work.

You’ll take projects from initial requirements through to production use, with responsibility for testing and documentation. As teams’ needs change, you’ll help maintain and extend the systems you build.

Location / work model: San Francisco based with three days in the office. 

Please note: This role may involve exposure to sensitive or concerning content. Strong discretion, good judgment, and resilience are essential.

In This Role, You Will

  • Work with USRO teams to understand their data needs and define requirements for datasets and reporting.
  • Build, maintain, and monitor production data pipelines and Airflow DAGs, including scheduling, dependencies, backfills, and troubleshooting failures. 
  • Build and maintain reusable data models, reporting cubes, and shared operational reporting metrics, so teams can use consistent definitions across dashboards and analyses.
  • Set up data quality and freshness checks, document lineage and ownership, and make the work supportable after handoff.
  • Document data sources and transformations so colleagues can trace results back to the underlying records.Apply access and privacy requirements when designing datasets and reporting.

You Might Thrive in This Role If You

  • Have strong SQL skills and practical experience using Python to build and maintain data pipelines.
  • Have built and debugged scheduled pipelines that other people depend on.
  • Practical understanding of data modeling, joins, deduplication, tests, and monitoring.
  • Ability to trace a surprising metric back to its inputs and explain what downstream users can and can’t conclude.
  • Experience partnering with non-engineers to turn ambiguous needs into dependable data products.

Nice to Have

  • Experience with Airflow or similar workflow orchestration tools.
  • Experience transferring prototypes or new workflows into reliable, scaled operations.

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.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf

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.

Source: Openai careers (Ashby)

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