Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering- NYC
About this role
The Forward Deployed Engineering team at OpenAI builds partnerships with customers to translate research breakthroughs into functioning production systems, operating at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development. As a foundational manager for this group, the hire will guide the team through high-stakes, ambiguous customer deployments while owning technical and business value outcomes from end to end. This leadership position exists to bridge fieldwork with core product roadmaps, ensuring that real-world deployments directly inform future iterations and safe scaling.
Candidates stepping into this role will partner closely with product, research, sales, and go-to-market teams to shape roadmap priorities and support secure scaling at large. Success in the position requires navigating high-pressure technical environments, providing direct and actionable feedback to foster team growth, and codifying effective strategies into reusable tools and playbooks. Professionals who excel here typically possess extensive technical delivery backgrounds, make sound decisions under pressure, and remain calm when managing complex, evolving customer deployments.
What you will do
- Lead and grow a team of forward deployed engineers delivering production systems utilizing frontier models.
- Own end-to-end delivery outcomes through clarity, speed, tight coordination, and technical quality.
- Codify successful delivery methods into tools, playbooks, and roadmap inputs for OpenAI and the developer community.
- Identify early indicators of issues in product behavior, customer environments, or delivery practices and raise them with urgency.
- Set high performance standards and support individual growth through direct, actionable feedback.
- Define staffing and support strategies for field teams to scale without adding unnecessary complexity.
What you need
- Bring 10 or more years of engineering or technical delivery experience.
- Include at least 2 years of experience managing high-performing forward deployed engineering or customer-facing engineering teams.
- Demonstrate a background in leading high-pressure technical projects from the prototype phase through to production.
- Write and review production-grade code across both frontend and backend using Javascript or Python.
Benefits
- Offers Equity
- Relocation assistance to new employees
Skills and tech stack
Questions candidates ask
What is the remote work policy for this role?
This role is based in New York City and uses a hybrid work model requiring 3 days in the office per week. The position also requires travel up to 25%.
What are the compensation details for the position?
The salary ranges from $302K to $385K and the position offers equity.
What teams will this manager collaborate with?
The manager will partner closely with Product, Research, Sales, and GTM to ensure fieldwork informs roadmap priorities and drives new exploration.