Manager, Revenue Accounting, Technical (Strategic Commercial Deals)

About the Team OpenAI Finance helps ensure the organization is set up for success in pursuit of its mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Within Finance, the Revenue Accounting, Technical team partners with Product, Strategic Partnerships, Business Development, Growth, Legal, Deal Desk, GTM, Strategic Finance, Revenue Accounting, and Finance Systems to enable scalable, operationally sound monetization. We advise on commercial and contract design, establish clear accounting positions under ASC 606, and translate those conclusions into repeatable processes, systems, controls, and reporting. About the Role We’re looking for a Manager of Revenue Accounting, Technical to drive the end-to-end technical revenue and operational workstream for OpenAI’s strategic commercial deals—from early structuring and deal-desk review through contracting, launch, and ongoing governance. Reporting to the Head of Revenue Accounting, Technical, you will serve as a key revenue advisor for complex and non-standard strategic deals, translating commercial objectives into revenue models that are economically sound, accounting-compliant, and operationally executable. You will partner with senior team members on the most novel or high-risk matters across strategic collaborations, cloud marketplaces, platform and distribution deals, licensing and revenue-share models, joint go-to-market initiatives, research collaborations, and other emerging commercial structures. You will engage from the earliest stages of a deal to shape economics, pricing, commercial terms, contract language, and product design; define the supporting data, billing, settlement, reporting, systems, controls, and revenue-recognition model; and drive cross-functional readiness through launch. After launch, you will help govern amendments, monitor whether the model is operating as intended, resolve execution issues, and evolve the approach as the partnership or business model changes. This role requires strong technical accounting judgment, commercial fluency, clear cross-functional communication, and the ability to independently drive complex workstreams while knowing when to seek input or escalate. 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. In this role, you will: • Own the day-to-day technical revenue workstream for a portfolio of strategic commercial deals from initial concept and term-sheet development through contracting, launch readiness, post-launch changes, and ongoing governance. • Build and pressure-test revenue models for strategic collaborations, cloud marketplaces, platform and distribution deals, licensing and revenue-share arrangements, and other emerging commercial models, including pricing, minimum commitments, incentives, credits, variable consideration, usage mechanics, and settlement flows. • Partner through the deal-desk process with Strategic Partnerships, Product, GTM, Strategic Finance, Legal, GTM Deal Desk, Tax, Finance Systems, and Revenue Operations to shape deal economics, pricing, contract terms, product configuration, and operational design from initial proposal through approval and launch. • Assist senior team members in evaluating complex transactions under ASC 606, including principal-versus-agent considerations, gross-versus-net presentation, performance obligations, variable consideration, contract combinations, commitments, credits, incentives, and related-party considerations, escalating precedent-setting judgments for senior review. • Translate technical conclusions into required commercial and contract terms, practical deal-desk guidance, approval guardrails, and clear intake, escalation, and decision-making processes for material deals, amendments, and renewals. • Design revenue models end to end by defining the contracting, product, data, order-to-cash, usage, billing, invoicing, settlement, reconciliation, reporting, systems, and control requirements needed to operate them; partner with operational teams to build, test, document, and scale the resulting processes. • Lead cross-functional launch readiness for strategic deals, validate that systems, data, billing, reporting, and controls reflect the approved structure, and help resolve post-launch issues, amendments, or changes in actual deal economics. • Develop clear internal decision materials and operating requirements, coordinate concurrent deal workstreams, and improve the playbooks, templates, and guidance that make strategic-deal execution more consistent and scalable. You might thrive in this role if you have: • 5+ years of technical revenue accounting or related advisory experience, with strong ASC 606 expertise and experience independently owning complex analyses and workstreams. • Experience working in or closely with a deal-desk function to support strategic commercial deals end to end, including complex collaborations, cloud marketplaces, platform distribution, licensing, revenue-share models, or other multi-party transactions. • Demonstrated ability to craft and pressure-test revenue models, influence commercial strategy, pricing, product design, and contract terms, and translate the agreed structure into executable operational flows. • Experience navigating emerging monetization models such as advertising revenue, marketplaces/commerce platforms, or other multi-sided ecosystems is a strong plus. • Strong working knowledge of principal-versus-agent analysis, gross-versus-net presentation, variable consideration, consideration payable to a customer, contract combinations, and complex performance-obligation assessments. • Experience driving cross-functional launch readiness, validating systems and operational processes, and resolving post-launch issues for complex or unfamiliar revenue models. • Experience translating evolving commercial structures into operational revenue models spanning contracting, product setup, usage data, billing, settlement, accounting, reconciliation, reporting, systems, and controls. • Sound commercial judgment and strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex accounting issues and practical trade-offs to accounting and non-accounting stakeholders. • Demonstrated success managing multiple strategic deals from intake through launch and ongoing governance, improving repeatable processes, and operating effectively in ambiguous, rapidly changing environments; experience mentoring others is valued. • CPA preferred; a mix of Big 4 (or accounting advisory), commercial deal support, and technology industry experience in high-growth environments is highly valued. 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. 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