About the Team

The Industrial Security team enables OpenAI’s classified and national security work by building secure, compliant programs that support government customers and protect sensitive information. We partner across Security, Legal, People, Facilities, Engineering, IT, and program leadership to translate complex government requirements into practical operating models that allow important work to move forward responsibly. Our work spans personnel security, classified facilities, special programs, government customer engagement, and the safeguards required to operate in highly regulated environments.

About the Role

As a Senior Special Programs Security Manager, you will lead security operations for OpenAI’s Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) and Special Access Programs (SAP), serving in customer-designated roles such as Contractor Special Security Officer (CSSO) or Contractor Program Security Officer (CPSO). You will help shape how OpenAI operates across the Intelligence Community and other national security environments, building the relationships, processes, and security foundations required to support classified work at scale.

We’re looking for someone who brings deep special programs expertise, sound operational judgment, and the credibility to work directly with government customers and senior internal stakeholders. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone comfortable navigating ambiguity, helping build the function, mentoring future team members, and finding compliant paths forward when mission needs and security requirements intersect.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA, or Washington, DC. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. Additional onsite presence and occasional travel may be required based on classified program, facility, and government customer needs.

This position requires active Top Secret eligibility, current SCI access, and a current counterintelligence (CI) polygraph at the time of application. Candidates must also be able to obtain and maintain additional customer-required accesses, including a full-scope polygraph if required.

In this role, you will:

• Lead SCI and SAP security operations across the program lifecycle, including access administration, indoctrinations and debriefings, security plans, classification requirements, incident reporting, inspections, and program closeout.

• Serve as the designated CSSO, CPSO, or equivalent program security official for assigned government customers and classified programs.

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with Intelligence Community and Department of Defense customers, government security officers, program security officers, and other external security stakeholders.

• Oversee the establishment, accreditation, operation, modification, and inspection readiness of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities and Special Access Program Facilities.

• Translate government regulations, contract requirements, DD Forms 254, security classification guides, and customer direction into practical policies, procedures, and operating decisions.

• Coordinate closely with personnel security, information systems security, classified IT, Facilities, Legal, and program teams to establish clear ownership and integrated safeguards.

• Lead self-inspections, security inquiries, corrective actions, customer assessments, and escalation of risks that could affect access, accreditation, or program execution.

• Advise Industrial Security leadership, independently represent the security function, and provide operational continuity across critical programs and customer relationships.

• Mentor and develop special programs security personnel while establishing the staffing, metrics, governance, and operating rhythms needed to support continued growth.

• Enable classified work through risk-informed decisions while maintaining the judgment and authority to stop or escalate activity that would violate security requirements.

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Have substantial experience leading contractor security for SCI and SAP programs, including direct experience as a CSSO, CPSO, CSPSO, SSO, or comparable customer-designated security official.

• Understand how Intelligence Community customers operate, including sponsor relationships, access processes, reciprocity, customer-specific requirements, and appropriate escalation channels.

• Have strong working knowledge of the NISPOM, ICDs 703, 704, and 705, Intelligence Community technical specifications for SCIFs, DoDM 5205.07, applicable Security Executive Agent Directives, and related customer guidance.

• Have established, accredited, operated, or modified SCIFs or SAPFs and can coordinate facility, physical security, information security, and technical accreditation requirements.

• Have successfully managed government customer relationships and can communicate clearly with security officials, technical teams, program leaders, and senior executives.

• Have led security inspections, customer reviews, incident response, corrective actions, and closure of complex compliance findings.

• Exercise strong judgment under pressure and can distinguish between requirements that can be addressed creatively and boundaries that cannot be crossed.

• Enjoy building teams, improving operating models, clarifying ownership, and creating durable processes in fast-moving environments, and are eager to use approved AI tools, agents, and automations to reduce administrative burden, improve visibility, and scale sound judgment without replacing sponsor approvals, security authority, or required human review.

• Hold active Top Secret eligibility and current SCI access with a current counterintelligence polygraph, and can obtain and maintain a full-scope polygraph or other customer-required access.

• Bring additional experience across multiple Intelligence Community or SAP customers, industrial security program buildouts, COMSEC, insider threat, or related security leadership disciplines.

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.

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.

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