About this role.
OpenAI is hiring a Community Engagement Lead to serve as the primary liaison with stakeholders in Effingham County and the greater Savannah Metropolitan Area during data-center development. The role combines public affairs, community engagement, proactive communications, reputation management, and strategic counsel to executives. It will partner closely with economic development and environmental leaders to communicate project impacts, support incentive compliance, and incorporate community benefits. The successful candidate will bring significant experience navigating politically sensitive infrastructure or technology projects and engaging diverse local constituencies.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Job Complexity
4/5Pace & Pressure
4/5Autonomy Level
5/5Communication Load
5/5Salary analysis
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Core skills
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Sample interview questions
I would begin with stakeholder mapping and listening sessions to understand concerns before finalizing messages or engagement tactics. I would provide clear, accessible information about the project, establish reliable feedback channels, communicate what can and cannot be changed, and report back on actions taken. Consistent follow-through and local presence are essential to turning initial outreach into long-term trust.
I would prepare with legal, environmental, technical, and economic-development partners to ensure factual alignment and clear escalation paths. During the hearing, I would acknowledge concerns respectfully, explain the relevant facts in plain language, avoid speculation, and commit to documented follow-up where information is still being assessed. Afterward, I would analyze recurring themes and recommend communication or project-response actions to leadership.
I would combine quantitative and qualitative measures, including stakeholder participation, meeting attendance, response times, sentiment trends, issue-resolution rates, media tone, and the diversity of represented groups. I would also track commitments made to communities, progress on community-benefit initiatives, and whether feedback is influencing project decisions. Metrics should show both activity levels and the quality of relationships being built.
I would establish a shared operating cadence, a single source of truth for commitments, and clear ownership for stakeholder communications. With Economic Development, I would translate incentive and workforce commitments into understandable local benefits; with Environmental, I would ensure sustainability claims are accurate, transparent, and responsive to community questions. My role would be to connect technical and policy work to credible public engagement.
I would create a modular playbook with consistent principles, stakeholder-mapping templates, message frameworks, escalation protocols, event formats, measurement standards, and examples of effective local adaptations. It should preserve core commitments to transparency and respect while allowing teams to tailor outreach to local political, cultural, and regulatory contexts. I would pilot it on active sites, gather lessons learned, and update it through regular cross-functional reviews.
About the Team
OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is embarking on a journey to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Industrial Compute team is central to this mission, setting the core infra strategy and implementing this vision. From site selection to the buildout process, this team sits at the intersection of commercial, technical, strategy, and operations, interacting with teams and executives inside and outside of OpenAI.
About the Role
The Community Engagement Lead will serve as the primary liaison between OpenAI and the communities where it plans to develop data centers, including Effingham County and the greater Savannah Metropolitan Area. This role ensures that OpenAI builds strong, trust-based relationships with local stakeholders, communicates proactively about our projects, and integrates community priorities into our development approach. The role spans engagement, communications, and reputation management, and will partner closely with the Economic Development and Environmental leads.
Key Responsibilities
Build and maintain relationships with local leaders, community organizations, NGOs, and residents.
Develop and execute community engagement strategies for new and existing sites.
Represent OpenAI in public forums, hearings, and community events.
Partner with the Economic Development Lead on incentive compliance and community benefits.
Partner with the Environmental Lead on communicating environmental stewardship and sustainability efforts.
Develop proactive communications to address concerns, highlight benefits, and reduce risk of opposition.
Monitor community sentiment and advise executives on risks and opportunities.
Create a community engagement playbook that can scale across geographies.
Qualifications
8+ years in community affairs, public engagement, or corporate communications.
Proven track record engaging diverse community stakeholders for large infrastructure or technology projects.
Strong public speaking and facilitation skills.
Ability to manage sensitive political and reputational issues.
Experience integrating community benefits (workforce, education, infrastructure support) into development strategies.
Collaborative and adaptable, with experience working across government, community, and corporate teams.
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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