Delivery Lead

OpenAI•San Francisco, CA

2d•$234,000 - $260,000

About The Position

The Delivery Lead is deployed selectively when a strategic customer has multiple materially interdependent delivery workstreams and no single workstream owner can resolve the dependencies between them. The Account Director (AD) continues to own account strategy, executive relationships, commercial outcomes, and use-case prioritization; technical delivery owners own solution design and execution within each workstream. The Delivery Lead owns the cross-workstream delivery contract—the integrated critical path, shared dependencies, program-level launch gates, resource conflicts, and time-bound escalation—and has delegated authority to drive those decisions. This is a senior delivery leadership role for someone who can make program-level tradeoffs, turn cross-workstream ambiguity into decisions, and protect the integrated critical path without absorbing the AD’s or technical delivery owners’ accountability. It is not a general account-advisory or coordination role. The Account Director (AD) owns account strategy, executive relationships, the commercial plan, use-case selection and prioritization, and the customer-outcome narrative. Technical delivery owners own solution design and execution within individual workstreams. The Delivery Lead is assigned only when multiple workstreams have material dependencies and owns the program-level critical path, cross-workstream sequencing, integrated launch gates, resource-contention decisions, and delivery-risk escalation. Within the agreed scope, the Delivery Lead has delegated authority to require a decision, set program milestones, re-sequence dependent work, and call a readiness hold. Changes to customer priority, use-case scope, or commercial commitments return to the AD; technical decisions remain with the technical delivery owner. The Delivery Lead does not create a second customer success plan, own individual use cases, manage technical resources day to day, or sit between the customer and the teams doing the work. Success is measured by the time required to resolve cross-workstream blockers, schedule predictability, integrated launch readiness, and clean handoffs—not by the number of meetings, status artifacts, or resources coordinated. The Delivery Lead stands down or hands off program-level governance once cross-workstream dependencies no longer require a dedicated owner.

Requirements

Experience leading complex enterprise customer programs, transformation initiatives, or large-scale technology deployments.
Strong technical aptitude and the ability to understand AI/ML systems, APIs, integrations, enterprise architecture, security dependencies, and deployment-readiness risks.
Demonstrated ability to translate customer and business outcomes into actionable execution plans with clear milestones, owners, dependencies, and success measures.
Strong judgment under ambiguity and a track record of identifying risk early, separating signal from noise, and driving clear decisions.
Ability to exercise delegated program-level authority while working across teams outside the reporting line, with clear judgment about what belongs to the account owner, the Delivery Lead, and the technical delivery owner.
Excellent cross-functional communication skills, with the ability to operate effectively with executives, technical teams, customer operators, and functional partners.
Strong operational discipline and experience building scalable cadences, artifacts, and mechanisms that improve execution.
Commercial and customer-value orientation, with an ability to connect delivery execution to measurable outcomes and account health.

Responsibilities

Own the cross-workstream delivery contract for designated multi-workstream programs, including the integrated critical path, shared dependencies, program-level commitments, decision owners, and launch gates.
Set the integrated critical path and program milestones, while leaving solution design and workstream execution with the relevant technical delivery owners.
Secure named decision owners and time-bound resolution for cross-workstream blockers before they become executive surprises.
Drive cross-workstream sequencing and capacity tradeoffs within the agreed scope; return changes to customer priority, use-case scope, or commercial commitments to the Account Director, and technical decisions to the relevant technical owner.
Run one program-level decision and dependency cadence that consumes, rather than duplicates, account and individual workstream cadences.
Resolve cross-workstream resource conflicts with functional leaders; staffing and day-to-day direction within each workstream remain with the relevant functional or technical owner.
Translate the customer priorities and outcomes agreed by the Account Director into program-level acceptance criteria, and provide delivery evidence back to the account team.
Define and enforce integrated launch and handoff gates, including the authority to call a readiness hold when cross-workstream criteria are not met.
Provide leadership with a forward-looking view of program health, material risks, decisions required, and the integrated path to production and scale.