Senior Counsel, Competition
OpenAI
San Francisco, CA · $330k–$366k a year · Posted October 27, 2026
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November 2026
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Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $348,000 a year. Across 31 open senior counsel listings that state pay, the middle half runs $197,000 to $241,500 and the median is $218,000. That is 60% above the median, above the middle half of those listings.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
How AI is used in this kind of work
Among lawyers, AI is already used for some of the tasks. Measured exposure for lawyers: 17% (some).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
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About the job
About the Team
OpenAI's Legal team plays a crucial role in furthering OpenAI's mission by tackling innovative, fundamental legal issues in AI. If you're passionate about doing significant and unique work as a technology lawyer, this team is for you. The team comprises professionals from diverse fields, including technology, AI, privacy, IP, corporate, employment, tax law, regulatory, and litigation.
About the Role
We’re seeking a senior lawyer to join OpenAI’s small but growing competition legal team and play a leadership role on a wide range of important legal and regulatory matters. This role will involve engaging with competition regulators globally, supporting OpenAI’s active M&A program, providing strategic and actionable legal advice on competition law issues related to our business activities, and driving antitrust enablement and training initiatives.
We’re looking for an agile and experienced competition lawyer who is a self-starter, can operate at a fast pace with a high volume of matters, and is a strong leader and highly collegial team player. This role reports to our Associate General Counsel, Competition.
This role is based in San Francisco or Washington, D.C. 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:
- Support OpenAI’s global regulatory engagements with competition authorities and lead OpenAI’s response to RFIs and other inquiries from competition regulators.
- Partner with our Corporate Legal and Corporate Development teams to support OpenAI’s strategic acquisitions and devise and execute regulatory clearance strategies.
- Collaborate with global policy and regulatory affairs to anticipate and navigate competition scrutiny in the area of AI.
- Advise business and other legal teams on competition law considerations related to OpenAI’s commercial relationships and business and product strategy.
- Develop impactful and effective competition-law related enablement resources and campaigns.
You’ll enjoy this role if you have:
- 10+ years of legal experience in the area of antitrust.
- Have a JD and license or qualification to practice in the state you reside.
- A mix of in-house and top-tier law firm experience.
- Experience working for a competition regulator is a plus.
- Expertise in the evaluation of antitrust risk and the development and execution of regulatory clearance strategy for acquisitions, investments, and other strategic transactions.
- Experience leading strategy and responses to competition regulator investigations at a technology company.
- Demonstrated ability to operate with autonomy and sound judgment in highly technical and fast-moving environments.
- Demonstrated ability to multi-task and manage competing priorities, and the agility to lead several different types of matters.
- A desire to build new things and think creatively about how a competition law practice can deliver measurable business impact.
- Exceptional communication skills, with an ability to distill complexity into actionable, business-aligned guidance.
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. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241.
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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.