Research Scientist

Secure Manufacturing & Stealth Investigator | OpenAI Careers Security - San Francisco Secure Manufacturing & Stealth Investigator Security is at the foundation of OpenAI’s mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. About the Role OpenAI is seeking to build an investigative capability for Secure Manufacturing & Stealth programs. The risk surface for unreleased products, prototypes, confidential hardware, infrastructure, supply chain, manufacturing, and launch-readiness efforts spans employees, vendors, suppliers, logistics partners, physical movement of assets, procurement records, manufacturing workflows, access systems, device telemetry, and adversarial collection. This role is intended to build and run investigations across that specialized environment. Responsibilities Lead complex SMS investigations to proactively identify and mitigate risks to unreleased products, prototypes, confidential hardware, secure manufacturing programs, and launch-readiness efforts. Investigate unauthorized disclosure, suspected leaks, insider risk, supplier compromise, vendor misconduct, theft, diversion, tampering, counterfeiting, surveillance, adversarial collection, and suspicious activity involving sensitive programs. Connect digital evidence, physical access activity, supply chain records, manufacturing data, vendor behavior, employee activity, collaboration metadata, procurement records, shipping data, and OSINT into clear findings and risk-reduction actions. Conduct proactive threat hunting to surface early indicators of compromise, collection, leakage, or insider activity affecting sensitive programs. Develop investigative playbooks, evidence-handling standards, escalation paths, reporting mechanisms, and recurring-risk feedback loops tailored to secure manufacturing and stealth environments. Qualifications 8+ years of investigative experience in corporate security, insider risk, supply chain security, counterintelligence, cyber investigations, manufacturing security, or related domains. Experience supporting sensitive programs, secure manufacturing environments, hardware programs, R&D environments, classified or restricted-access programs, or high-value intellectual property protection. Proven ability to independently lead complex end-to-end investigations across cyber, physical, operational, human, and external partner domains with minimal supervision. Strong understanding of insider threat, supply chain risk, vendor risk, information leakage, physical security investigations, and adversarial collection methods. Ability to analyze disparate evidence sources, including physical access records, visitor logs, device logs, endpoint telemetry, collaboration tools, procurement records, shipping records, manufacturing workflows, vendor documentation, communications metadata, and OSINT. Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills, especially with Legal, HR, Engineering, Procurement, Supply Chain, Physical Security, Cybersecurity, IT, and external partners. Compensation $288K – $425K + Offers Equity 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. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities; requests can be made via our accommodations process. #J-18808-Ljbffr