Lead, Revenue Accounting, Technical
OpenAI · San Francisco, United States · 3d ago
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 Technical Revenue team partners with Product, Legal, GTM, Strategic Finance, Revenue Accounting, Finance Systems, and the company’s GTM Deal Desk organization to enable scalable, audit-ready monetization. We advise on commercial and contract design, establish defensible accounting positions under ASC 606, and provide clear conclusions and handoffs for downstream execution by Revenue Accounting Operations.
About the Role
We’re looking for a Senior Manager of Technical Revenue Enablement to lead Revenue Recognition deal advisory for OpenAI’s general B2B commercial activity.
Reporting to the Head of Technical Revenue, you will serve as the primary Revenue Recognition counterpart to OpenAI’s Deal Desk organization, partnering with Legal, GTM, Product, Pricing, and Strategic Finance throughout the presignature deal lifecycle. You will own intake and triage, advise on non-standard terms, approve arrangements supported by established policy and precedent, and route novel or strategic matters to the appropriate technical owner.
You will build a scalable deal-advisory model by translating ASC 606 into practical contract guardrails, approved language, decision trees, review thresholds, and clear service levels.
This role requires deep technical accounting judgment, commercial fluency, strong stakeholder influence, and the ability to make timely, risk-based decisions in a fast-moving environment.
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:
Lead the Revenue Recognition deal-advisory function for general B2B transactions, serving as the primary finance counterpart to OpenAI’s GTM Deal Desk organization.
Partner early with GTM Deal Desk, Legal, GTM, Product, and Strategic Finance to evaluate proposed economics and terms before commitments are made or contracts are signed.
Own deal intake and triage, distinguish standard, non-standard, novel, and strategic arrangements, and route matters to the appropriate technical owner based on policy, materiality, and risk.
Review and resolve revenue recognition issues involving performance obligations, variable consideration, commitments, credits, concessions, contract modifications, options, incentives, implied promises, acceptance provisions, and consideration payable to a customer.
Approve transactions covered by established policy and precedent, and develop clear, recommendation-led escalation packages for novel or material judgments.
Translate technical conclusions into practical commercial guardrails, approved contract language, fallback positions, decision trees, and training for GTM Deal Desk, Legal, and GTM.
Partner with contract-review operations to establish review service levels, prioritization standards, stakeholder communications, performance metrics, and feedback loops that support deal velocity without compromising revenue integrity.
Prepare audit-ready conclusions and standardized accounting handoffs for Revenue Accounting Operations, including performance obligations, transaction price, allocation, revenue pattern, monitoring requirements, and billing-versus-revenue differences.
You might thrive in this role if you have:
10+ years of technical revenue accounting, revenue recognition, or related advisory experience, with deep ASC 606 expertise and experience leading complex workstreams.
Significant experience partnering with commercial Deal Desk, Legal, Sales or GTM teams on high-volume B2B contracts and non-standard commercial terms.
Strong command of performance-obligation analysis, variable consideration, consideration payable to a customer, contract modifications, material rights, principal-versus-agent analysis, and gross-versus-net presentation.
A track record of translating technical accounting requirements into practical contract language, commercial guardrails, and workable alternatives.
Strong risk-based judgment and the ability to distinguish routine matters, precedent-supported exceptions, novel policy questions, and strategic transactions.
Experience building or improving deal intake, triage, approval, escalation, service-level, and governance processes.
Demonstrated ability to balance deal velocity with accounting integrity, audit readiness, and clear decision rights.
Strong commercial judgment and executive communication skills, with the ability to explain complex accounting issues and practical trade-offs to senior non-accounting stakeholders.
Demonstrated success influencing cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority in ambiguous, rapidly changing environments.
CPA strongly preferred; a mix of Big 4 (or accounting advisory) 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. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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