Senior Counsel, Sanctions and Trade Compliance

OpenAI's Legal team plays a crucial role in furthering OpenAI's mission by tackling innovative, fundamental legal issues in AI. The team comprises professionals from diverse fields, including technology, AI, privacy, IP, corporate, employment, tax law, regulatory, and litigation.

About the role

As a member of our Security Legal team, you will manage and evolve OpenAI’s sanctions compliance program, developing an overall compliance strategy, mapping out screening architecture and workflow designs, and collaborating cross-functionally on monitoring, metrics, and continuous improvement. You will manage sanctions compliance policy and strategy for a globally impactful technology platform, with real ownership to develop systems that scale as the company and technology evolve. You’ll also collaborate on adjacent trade compliance and security issues.

This role can be hybrid or remote and based in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York, or Seattle. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

Responsibilities

• Advise cross-functional teams on compliance and legal requirements applicable to OpenAI’s products and services under U.S. and international sanctions regimes.
• Develop sanctions compliance strategies and processes at a global scale for a frontier AI company operating across jurisdictions and products.
• Partner closely with cross-functional teams across Finance, Integrity, GRC, and Engineering to implement sanctions screening and controls embedded into business workflows.
• Own compliance documentation and reporting, including policies, standards, dashboards, metrics, and escalation frameworks to enable rapid monitoring, assessment, and improvement of compliance processes.
• Work with cross-functional teams to integrate compliance systems and tools, ensuring compliance checks are seamless, reliable, and adaptable as OpenAI evolves.
• Lead ongoing reviews and risk assessments to ensure the continued effectiveness of compliance controls and processes.
• Manage and coordinate vendors and third parties who support OpenAI’s compliance operations.
• Assist in the development of trade compliance training materials for cross-functional partners and business teams.
• Explore and deploy AI tools to enhance and streamline OpenAI’s trade compliance efforts.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in the trade compliance field, including developing and implementing trade compliance programs at a large, technology-focused company.
• Hold a J.D. from an accredited law school and maintain an active license to practice law, in good standing, in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
• Sophisticated understanding of how U.S. and international sanctions laws apply to multinational companies.
• Experience embedding comprehensive compliance programs and incorporating compliance processes into complex business workflows without slowing innovation.
• Enjoy learning new systems and becoming the go-to expert in technical tools required for the role.
• Highly skilled at program management, including organizing complex systems, tasks, processes, and documentation.
• Communicate in a way that builds trust with cross-functional teams, from engineers to business leaders.
• Strong sense of ownership, inquisitive, enthusiastic about technology, and able to demonstrate sound judgment in ambiguous situations.

Pay

Compensation range: $297K - $330K