Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering

Overview

About the team OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team partners with customers to turn research breakthroughs into production systems. We operate at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development. About the role As a foundational FDE manager, you’ll lead FDE through high-stakes, ambiguous customer deployments and own technical and business value outcomes end to end.

What you'll do

• You’ll grow a team that can operate under pressure and help OpenAI learn from the field.
• You’ll partner closely with Product, Research, Sales, and GTM to ensure fieldwork informs roadmap priorities, drives new exploration, and supports safe deployment at scale.
• Your decisions will influence how OpenAI is trusted by the customers closest to our deployment work.
• Your success will be measured by how consistently your team ships, how clearly you deliver signal to Research and Product, and how durable your team and delivery model prove to be.
• This role is based in New York City We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.
• This role also will require travel up to 25%.
• Lead and grow a team of FDE delivering production systems with frontier models
• Own end-to-end delivery outcomes through clarity, speed, tight coordination, and technical quality

Requirements

• Practical experience with JavaScript, Python, Rust, Java.
• Experience level: 8+ yrs.
• Strong written and verbal communication in English.
• Comfortable working on-site in New York City.

Skills