Strategic Finance, Hardware Product Finance Lead

OpenAI•San Francisco, CA

21d•Hybrid

About The Position

We are hiring a senior Hardware Finance Leader to own financial modeling for product cost, inventory, and manufacturing economics for OpenAI’s consumer hardware portfolio. This role is responsible for ensuring that hardware decisions—spanning capacity planning, manufacturing ramps, and inventory builds—are grounded in rigorous, decision-quality financial analysis before capital and material commitments are locked in. This role sits at the center of Supply Chain, Operations, Manufacturing, Procurement, Product, Accounting, and Tax, and serves as the embedded finance partner for hardware cost, inventory, and capital-commitment decisions. You will build the financial foundation that enables leadership to understand margins, inventory exposure, and downside risk as hardware programs move from NPI through launch and scale. We have a strong preference for candidates who can be based in our San Francisco HQ. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

Requirements

12+ years of progressive finance experience with significant exposure to hardware, manufacturing, or complex supply chain businesses
A passion for helping build world-class finance teams and driving business and financial outcomes, as measured on margin improvement, working capital efficiency, forecast accuracy, and execution of cost-reduction initiatives
A strong ability to critically evaluate opportunities and risks
Expert modeling skills with best-in-class attention to detail and unwavering commitment to accuracy
Exemplary ability to distill complex financial information into actionable insights
Excellent communication skills and “story telling” ability when presenting data insights
Strong enthusiasm for building the human-computer interface for the AI era.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary finance partner to Supply Chain, Operations, Manufacturing, and Procurement, shaping decisions on capacity planning, ramp profiles, and material commitments.
Build and own integrated financial models that track COGS, inventory, working capital, cash flow, and P&L across the full hardware lifecycle.
Model and maintain detailed cost drivers, including BOM structure, CapEx, freight and logistics, yield assumptions, manufacturing variances, tariffs and import duties, warranty accruals, and inventory reserves.
Own inventory and cash-flow forecasting tied to manufacturing execution, including inventory builds, reserves, obsolescence risk, and launch readiness.
Maintain cost and risk sensitivity frameworks across volume, yield, ramp timing, mix, and cost-down realization to enable clear, decision-ready tradeoffs.
Translate product roadmaps and supply-chain plans into financially grounded execution plans, clearly quantifying the financial implications of capacity and ramp decisions.
Own scenario analysis for volume changes, ramp shifts, and supply-chain disruptions, including impacts to margins, inventory exposure, and cash flow.
Establish clear escalation paths for material cost increases or inventory risk prior to supplier, tooling, or capacity commitment.
Establish portfolio-level consistency and governance, ensuring standard costs, inventory metrics, and manufacturing economics are accurate and comparable across programs and generations.
Partner closely with Accounting, Tax, and Corporate Finance to ensure hardware COGS and inventory exposure are reflected correctly in the P&L and balance sheet, supported by clear standard-cost methodologies, reserve frameworks, tariff accounting, and scalable system flows.
Contribute to the scaling of the hardware COGS and supply-chain finance foundation, improving modeling rigor, governance, and decision support as volumes and complexity grow.