Physical Security Systems Design Engineer
About the Team
The Physical Security Technology Group at OpenAI is a crucial component of our Corporate Security team. We are dedicated to deploying cutting-edge security technologies to safeguard our people, our corporate spaces, and our events worldwide.
About the Role
As a Physical Security Systems Administrator, you will play a critical role in protecting OpenAI’s people, facilities, and operations as the company continues to scale globally. As part of the Corporate Security team, you will be responsible for operating and evolving the systems that control how employees, visitors, and partners safely access our campuses. This role blends hands-on technical administration with cross-functional coordination, ensuring that physical access, badging, and visitor workflows are accurate, secure, and compliant at all times.
The ideal candidate brings strong expertise in enterprise access control, visitor management, and physical security platforms, along with a disciplined, process-driven mindset. You will own the day-to-day reliability of our security infrastructure while partnering closely with HR, Onboarding, IT, and Facilities to support a fast-paced, high-growth environment where precision, availability, and trust are paramount.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA. Some domestic and international travel may be required (<10%). We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week.
In this role, you will:
Build out, administer, and continuously improve the enterprise visitor management program across all offices, ensuring a secure, compliant, and consistent visitor experience.
Serve as the subject-matter expert for security system configuration, access control policies, and visitor workflows.
Develop, document, and enforce standard operating procedures (SOPs) for badging, visitor access, system changes, and incident response.
Work closely with HR, People Operations, and Onboarding teams to ensure new hires, transfers, and terminations are reflected accurately and on time in physical access and identity systems.
Configure, administer, and maintain access control, video surveillance, intercom, and intrusion detection systems across a global office footprint.
Own badge lifecycle management including creation, activation, modification, suspension, and revocation for employees, contractors, and visitors.
Maintain integrations between physical security platforms and HRIS, identity management, and visitor management systems to ensure automated and auditable access provisioning.
Perform regular system health checks, audits, and preventative maintenance to ensure optimal availability, data integrity, and compliance.
Respond to and resolve security system incidents and technical issues in a timely manner, including off-hours and on-call support when required.
Act as a specialist on preventative maintenance for security infrastructure, ensuring on-time and accurate security patching and updates according to standard operating procedures.
Manage vendor relationships to ensure quality of their deliverables.
Coordinate with site management teams to interface with internal and third-party auditors in order to fulfill audit requirements.
You may be a fit for this role if you have:
Have extensive experience with physical security technologies, including access control systems, CCTV, and intrusion detection platforms.
Maintain a Genetec Certification (required).
Have a proven track record of managing visitor management systems
Have a proven track record of managing employee onboarding
Possess strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously while maintaining attention to detail.
Have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, capable of working discreetly on sensitive security matters.
Collaborate well with cross-functional teams to coordinate security installations that may impact facility infrastructures.
Are willing to respond at odd hours to urgent needs.
Are willing to travel domestically and internationally as needed (less than 10%).
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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Compensation: USD 175,000 - 175,000 per year • Equity offered