Forward Deployed Software Engineer

at  OpenAI

ABOUT THE TEAM

Over the past year, we have experienced a significant increase in demand for OpenAI’s hands-on technical expertise to translate abstract ideas into production applications. We’ve established a Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team who will work closely with our most strategic customers to deeply understand their use cases and design, build, and implement products for them. As one of our founding FDSWEs, you will deploy these solutions on customer infrastructure for the world’s most influential businesses, driving real business impact through our newest models and our own innovations in technical delivery.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for customer-focused software engineers to build effective custom software that leverages OpenAI’s APIs to solve real customer problems. As an FDSWE, you will work with our customers and OpenAI Forward Deployed Engineers to design and implement scalable solutions that solve their most difficult problems. You will design abstractions to solve customer problems, and then use them to scale our speed and quality of delivery across all Forward Deployed engagements.
You will collaborate closely with Sales, Solutions Engineering, Solutions Architects, and Customer Success Managers who work on the same account. You will also work with our Research and Applied Product and Engineering teams to provide insightful customer feedback.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA [NY, London, Dublin, Paris]. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:

• Embed deeply with strategic customers to understand their business challenges and technical requirements in detail.
• Design, architect, and develop full-stack solutions using an experiment-driven, iterative approach.
• Prepare detailed scopes of work and project plans for both proof-of-concept prototypes and full production deployments.
• Work hands-on with customers’ technical teams as a technical expert and trusted advisor, coding side-by-side to drive projects to completion on their infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with Sales, Technical Success, and Applied teams to ensure seamless customer experiences, project success and actionable product feedback
• Contribute to internal knowledge bases, codifying best practices and sharing insights gained from customer engagements to scale the Forward Deployed Engineering function.

YOU’LL THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU:

• 7+ years of professional engineering experience (excluding internships) in relevant roles at tech and product-driven companies - customer-facing experience is highly desirable
• Are willing to travel up to 50% and work on-site with customers to build strong relationships and deeply understand their needs.
• Former founder, or early engineer at a startup who has built a product from scratch is a plus
• Are proficient in front-end development using frameworks like React or Next.js, and back-end development skills in Python, Node.js, or similar.
• Some experience with relational databases like Postgres/MySQL
• Interest in AI/ML (direct experience not required)
• Have a bias for action and willingness to work iteratively with your customers to deliver the right solution that solves their problem.