Senior Manager, Revenue Recognition - Strategic 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 Technical Revenue team partners with Product, Strategic Partnerships, Business Development, Growth, Legal, Deal Desk, GTM, Strategic Finance, Revenue Accounting, and Finance Systems to enable scalable, audit-ready monetization. We advise on commercial and contract design, establish defensible accounting positions under ASC 606, and translate those conclusions into repeatable processes, systems, controls, and reporting. About the Role We’re looking for a Senior Manager of Revenue Recognition to lead revenue strategy and technical accounting for OpenAI’s strategic commercial deals. Reporting to the Head of Technical Revenue, you will serve as the primary revenue advisor for large, bespoke, and non-standard deals outside OpenAI’s standard product and service offerings. Your portfolio may include 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 early in the deal lifecycle to help shape commercially viable, accounting-compliant, and operationally scalable outcomes. You will establish the accounting posture, identify required contract and product terms, define reporting and control requirements, and ensure that deal economics, billing flows, and revenue recognition remain aligned as the business evolves. This role requires strong technical accounting judgment, commercial fluency, executive communication, and the ability to create clarity and ownership in areas where precedent may not yet exist. 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 technical revenue accounting for strategic commercial deals, including large, bespoke, and non-standard transactions outside OpenAI’s standard product and service offerings. - Serve as the primary revenue advisor for strategic collaborations, cloud marketplaces, platform and distribution deals, licensing and revenue-share models, and other emerging commercial structures. - Partner early with Strategic Partnerships, Product, GTM, Strategic Finance, Legal, Deal Desk, and Tax to understand and influence deal economics, pricing, contract terms, and operational design. - Evaluate complex and ambiguous 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. - Translate technical conclusions into practical commercial guardrails and establish clear intake, escalation, and decision-making frameworks for material deals and amendments. - Define the data, reporting, billing, settlement, reconciliation, and control requirements needed to operationalize new commercial models and support accurate revenue recognition. - Draft audit-ready technical accounting memos and policies, lead discussions with external auditors, and clearly communicate conclusions and trade-offs to senior stakeholders. - Manage and develop team members and external resources, prioritize concurrent high-value deals, and strengthen the team’s ability to influence commercial decisions proactively. You might thrive in this role if you have: - 10+ years of technical revenue accounting or related advisory experience, with deep ASC 606 expertise and experience leading complex workstreams or teams. - Significant experience supporting large, bespoke commercial deals, strategic collaborations, cloud marketplaces, platform distribution, licensing, revenue-share models, or other multi-party transactions. - A track record of influencing commercial strategy, pricing, product design, and contract terms before launch or signature. - Experience navigating emerging monetization models such as advertising revenue, marketplaces/commerce platforms, or other multi-sided ecosystems is a strong plus. - Strong command of principal-versus-agent analysis, gross-versus-net presentation, variable consideration, consideration payable to a customer, contract combinations, and complex performance-obligation assessments. - A track record of influencing commercial strategy, pricing, product design, and contract terms before launch or signature. - Experience translating evolving commercial models into scalable billing, accounting, reconciliation, reporting, systems, and control requirements. - 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 establishing ownership, governance, and repeatable processes in ambiguous, rapidly changing environments while developing team members and managing external resources. - CPA strongly preferred; a mix of Big 4 (or accounting advisory) and tech 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 https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf. 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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