Inventory Manager

Responsibilities

• Build inventory operations from the ground up across various OpenAI facilities.
• Design and set up stockrooms, receiving areas, and material-storage locations, including selecting racks, shelving, bins, carts, labeling equipment, scanners, and other infrastructure.
• Personally execute core inventory activities, including receiving, labeling, putaway, picking, kitting, issuing, cycle counting, transfers, returns, and inventory adjustments.
• Establish practical receiving procedures that ensure incoming material is identified, recorded, inspected or quarantined when appropriate, and made available quickly.
• Hire, train, and manage contractors or onsite inventory administrators as volume and facility needs grow.
• Create location structures, naming conventions, barcode workflows, material-status controls, and standard work.
• Maintain accurate visibility into what inventory exists, where it is located, and whether it is available for use.
• Establish and maintain cycle-counting and physical-inventory programs, investigate discrepancies, identify root causes, and implement corrective actions.
• Own internal logistics and material movement between company facilities, including transfer processes, delivery schedules, chain of custody, transaction accuracy, and reconciliation.
• Develop appropriate controls for serialized, lot-controlled, high-value, consigned, returned, obsolete, and nonconforming material.
• Serve as the business owner for inventory tools and workflows.
• Partner with the systems team to translate operational needs into requirements, prioritize improvements, test new functionality, and drive adoption.
• Create procedures and training that allow inventory operations to be replicated consistently at new facilities.
• Identify inventory risks, shortages, excess material, unidentified material, and process breakdowns before they disrupt operations.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience in inventory management, warehouse operations, materials operations, internal logistics, or a related field.
• Experience building or substantially improving an inventory operation, not only working within an established one.
• Strong working knowledge of receiving, putaway, picking, kitting, cycle counting, material transfers, inventory reconciliation, and physical inventory controls.
• Willingness to work directly in stockrooms, receiving areas, laboratories, and manufacturing spaces.
• Ability to move comfortably between strategic design and hands-on execution.
• Experience selecting and implementing physical inventory infrastructure such as racks, shelving, bins, labeling systems, barcode scanners, and material-handling equipment.
• Familiarity with ERP, WMS, MES, or inventory-management systems and the transactions required to maintain accurate inventory.
• Willingness to travel regularly among company facilities.

Success Metrics

• Within the first 6 months: Turned empty or informal storage areas into organized, functional stockrooms.
• Established consistent receiving, storage, counting, and material-transfer processes across active facilities.
• Created reliable visibility into what inventory exists, where it is located, and whether it is available for use.
• Implemented practical location controls, labeling standards, transaction procedures, and cycle counting.
• Built a reliable inter-building logistics process with clear ownership and traceability.