Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - SF
Works directly with LLMs and generative models to prototype and productionize AI features; heavy on customer-facing, rapid iteration and deployment of AI-driven systems.
About the Role
Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) at OpenAI lead end-to-end deployments of frontier models with strategic customers, owning discovery, technical scoping, system design, implementation, and production rollout. The role focuses on building full-stack, LLM-powered systems, driving customer adoption, and feeding field learnings back into product and model roadmaps.
Job Description
Role
Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) partner with customers to turn research breakthroughs into production systems. FDEs own discovery, technical scoping, system design, building, and production rollouts of frontier models, working directly with customer engineering and domain teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead technical delivery across multiple deployments from prototype to stable production.
- Build full-stack systems that deliver customer value and inform product learning.
- Embed with customer teams to understand needs and guide adoption.
- Scope work, sequence delivery, remove blockers, and make trade-offs between scope, speed, and quality.
- Contribute directly in code when needed and codify working patterns into tools, playbooks, or building blocks.
- Share field feedback to inform Research and Product teams and keep cross-functional teams aligned and moving.
Requirements
- 5+ years of engineering or technical deployment experience including customer-facing work.
- Experience scoping and delivering complex systems in fast-moving or ambiguous environments.
- Ability to write and review production-grade code across frontend and backend using Python, JavaScript, or comparable stacks.
- Experience building or deploying systems powered by LLMs or generative models and understanding how model behavior affects product experience.
- Strong communication with engineers, product teams, and customer stakeholders; ability to spot risks, make fast sound decisions, and model calm under pressure.
Location, Work Model & Travel
- Role is based in San Francisco with a hybrid work model requiring 3 days in the office per week.
- Relocation assistance is offered.
- Travel up to 50% is required.
How Success Is Measured
- Production adoption, measurable workflow impact, and evaluation-driven feedback that influences product and model roadmaps.
Team & Collaboration
- Work closely with Product, Research, Partnerships, GRC, Security, and GTM teams to deliver and iterate on deployed systems.