Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering - NYC

About the role

OpenAI's Forward Deployed Engineering team partners with customers to turn research breakthroughs into production systems, working at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development. As a foundational FDE manager, you will lead the team through high-stakes, ambiguous customer deployments and own technical and business value outcomes end to end, growing a team that can operate under pressure. The role is based in New York City, with a hybrid model of 3 days in the office per week, relocation assistance for new employees and travel of up to 25%.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of FDE engineers delivering production systems with frontier models.
• Own end-to-end delivery outcomes through clarity, speed, tight coordination and technical quality.
• Turn what works into tools, playbooks and roadmap inputs that benefit OpenAI and the wider developer community.
• Spot early warning signs in product behavior, customer environments or delivery practices and raise them with urgency.
• Use judgement to decide what needs action and what does not.
• Set a high bar for performance and give direct, actionable feedback to support each person's growth.
• Define how field teams are staffed and supported so they can scale without added complexity.

Required profile

• 10+ years of engineering or technical delivery experience, including 2+ years managing high-performing FDE or customer-facing engineers.
• Experience leading high-pressure technical projects from prototype to production.
• Able to simplify complex work and make fast, sound decisions under pressure.
• Able to turn field experience into actionable feedback for Product and Research.

Required skills

• Writing and reviewing production-grade code across frontend and backend using JavaScript or Python.

What we offer

• Hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week.
• Relocation assistance for new employees.