Manager, Deployment Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)

Forward Deployed Engineering - New York City

About the Team

OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) 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 Deployment Lead Manager (DL Manager), you’ll lead and grow a team of DLs through high-stakes customer deployments, owning technical and business outcomes end to end. You’ll help build the function as you lead it, navigating significant ambiguity to define its scope and ways of working.

You’ll partner with FDE product priorities. Drawing on your experience leading complex technical deployments and products, you’ll guide decisions on scope, feasibility, sequencing, and delivery readiness, helping your team make sound tradeoffs and build lasting customer trust.

Success will be measured by the impact of your team’s deployments, the growth of your DLs, and how effectively the team and delivery model scale.

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 will require travel up to 25%.

In this role, you will:

• Lead and grow a team of DLs delivering production systems with frontier models
• Own end-to-end delivery outcomes, from scoping through production, adoption, and handoff
• Set direction and build trust across technical teams, GTM, and customer executives
• Codify what works into practical playbooks, consistent delivery practices, and product roadmap inputs
• Set a high bar for DL performance through hands-on coaching, actionable feedback, and career development
• Make staffing decisions, develop future DL leaders, and build a team that scales without unnecessary complexity

You might thrive in this role if you:

• Bring 8+ years of customer-facing technical delivery or product leadership experienceing teams.
• Have personally led complex technical deployments from prototype through production, adoption, and handoff.
• Have a strong product mindset, ideally with product management experience, and can balance customer-specific needs with reusable solutions.
• Thrive in ambiguity and enjoy building new functions: creating structure where little existsation, and adapting as priorities evolve.
• Build deep trust across technical teams, Product, Research, GTM, and customer leadership.
• Have a strong track record of hiringance through clarity, not process.

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 the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employeration, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable lawation technology systems and related data security obligations.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities.

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.

Compensation

$302K – $385K + Offers Equity

The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factorsance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
• Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
• Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
• 13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
• Mental health and wellness support
• Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
• Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
• Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
• Relocation support for eligible employees
• Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.

More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.

This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.