Sr. Employee Relations Partner (Non-Investigations)

OpenAI • San Francisco, CA

94d

About The Position

OpenAI’s People team is committed to hiring, engaging, and supporting world-class talent to help safely build and deploy universally beneficial Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The Global Employee Relations and People Standards team brings together expertise in employee relations, employment investigations, and People compliance, policy, and standards. We play a critical role in shaping how OpenAI supports its people through complexity, growth, and change. Our team guides and supports the company through some of its most nuanced and high-impact people challenges. We operate with deep context and care, balancing trust, judgment, and creativity in every situation. We don’t default to predefined frameworks. Instead, we take a principled yet flexible approach, designing thoughtful, tailored solutions that reflect our values, the needs of our employees, and the unique pace of OpenAI. 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.

Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of experience in employee relations or other People experience roles, ideally in high-growth, fast-paced, and highly dynamic environments.
• Proven experience managing high-tension, highly escalated employee situations with discretion, empathy, and calm under pressure.
• A proven track record of handling complex performance management, re-orgs, position elimination, sensitive exits, and conflict resolution with a steady, thoughtful, and pragmatic approach.
• Exceptional interpersonal and relationship-building skills—you build trust quickly, communicate with warmth and clarity, and can connect with employees, managers, and senior leaders alike.
• Strong instincts for people and culture, with the ability to read situations, understand organizational dynamics, and offer grounded, empathetic guidance.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, especially when navigating sensitive or high-stakes conversations.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and rapid change, with the ability to move quickly and decisively while staying aligned with OpenAI’s mission and values.
• A commitment to fairness, discretion, and principled decision-making.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in tech, research, or mission-driven organizations.
• A non-conventional mindset with creative, outside-the-box thinking.

Responsibilities

• Advise and guide managers, HRBPs, and cross-functional partners through complex or high-risk employee situations, including conflict resolution, interpersonal friction, performance challenges, and difficult conversations.
• Partner closely with Legal and HRBPs on strategic performance management, offering guidance on performance improvement plans (PIPs), documentation, and exit strategies.
• Lead or support sensitive, high-touch employee exits where preserving dignity, ensuring compliance, and maintaining cultural alignment are all essential.
• Act as a sounding board and escalation partner for workplace culture concerns, manager-employee dynamics, and early signals of broader people issues.
• Help build scalable tools and frameworks that strengthen ER support across the company and reduce over-reliance on formal processes or investigations.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with HRBPs, Legal, cross-functional partners, and leadership to ensure alignment on people decisions, organizational changes, and policy implementation.
• Navigate ambiguity with a proactive, calm, creative, and solutions-oriented mindset, helping to clarify issues and move toward resolution in a dynamic, evolving environment.
• Use data and insight to identify trends and advise on systemic solutions that promote trust, engagement, and long-term cultural health.

Benefits

• Relocation assistance for new employees.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees