OpenAI· Model Deployment for Business· New York City
Technical Deployment Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) - NYC
Comp$198K – $335K
Classified Tasks (22)
Automate 0%Augment 68%Human-Only 32%
Augment (15)
AI assists, human decides
Translate business outcomes into technical plans with milestones, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
technical
Own the technical delivery plan for multiple interdependent work streams.
technical
Track and drive delivery progress across OpenAI and customer teams.
operational
Manage dependencies across interdependent work streams.
operational
Drive 0→1 prototypes through MVP and scale.
creative
Map customer workflows and define success criteria.
analytical
Shape tools and integrations to meet customer workflow needs.
technical
Translate customer requirements into detailed delivery plans.
technical
Partner with Product and Research to ensure platform components and research workstreams land in time for deployments.
communication
Codify solution patterns and evaluation methods for repeatable deployments.
analytical
Extract reusable patterns and package field signals to improve product and models.
analytical
Own value cases and ROI for deployments.
analytical
Set impact hypotheses, baselines, and KPIs for deployment outcomes.
analytical
Run pre- and post-deployment measurements and report results to executive sponsors.
analytical
Share field insights with Product and Research to guide roadmap and priorities.
communication
Human-Only (7)
Requires human judgment
Define how OpenAI delivers complex systems to customers.
leadership
Own end-to-end delivery of customer systems, including build, shipping, and adoption.
operational
Run day-to-day engineering execution across FDEs, Researchers, and Customer Engineers.
operational
Unblock and sequence work to keep progress on schedule.
operational
Make real-time trade-offs on scope and priority to protect the critical path.
leadership
Embed with customer teams to land production deployments and drive adoption.
communication
Lead onboarding, adoption, and change management for deployed solutions.
leadership
Job description
Technical Deployment Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) - NYC | OpenAI Careers ## Technical Deployment Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) - NYC Model Deployment for Business - New York City Apply now(opens in a new window) **About the team** OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team turns research breakthroughs into production-grade systems. We embed deeply with customers to solve high-leverage problems and act as the delivery engine for our most complex large-scale engagements. We move quickly from prototype to production and surface reusable patterns that shape our platform. We operate at the intersection of deployment and development – working closely with OpenAI Research, Product and Partnerships. **About the Role** As a Technical Deployment Lead (TDL), you will define how OpenAI delivers complex systems to customers. You will own how they are built, shipped, and adopted. You’ll translate business outcomes into a technical plan, run day-to-day execution across FDEs, Researchers, and Customer Engineers, and partner with customer teams to ensure delivery supports their goals. You will own delivery end-to-end: embedding with customers to map workflows and success criteria, ensuring components ship on time, and leading readiness and change management for adoption. You’ll track progress, manage dependencies, make sequencing decisions, and drive 0→1 prototypes through MVP and scale. You will also share field insights with Product and Research to guide roadmap and priorities. Success will be measured first and foremost by impact - deployments that deliver measurable value against customer goals, drive adoption, and become critical to their workflows. Additional measures of success include delivery reliability (milestones hit, low reopen/churn), operating leverage (patterns reused across deployments), judgment under pressure, and product impact (field signal that shifts roadmaps/architectures). This is a high-trust, high-autonomy role. Success requires deep technical project management expertise, extreme ownership of outcomes, and an ability to immerse in customer workflows and partner with customer teams to solve complex engineering problems at pace. This role is based in NYC. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week. We offer relocation assistance. Travel between 25%- 50% is required. **In this role, you will:** * **Own the technical delivery plan** for multiple interdependent work streams. Translate business objectives into a roadmap with milestones, dependencies, and acceptance criteria. * **Run day-to-day engineering execution.** Track and drive delivery across OpenAI FDE and customer teams. Keep progress unblocked and sequenced. Make real-time trade-offs on scope and priority to protect the critical path. * **Embed with customer teams to land production deployments and drive adoption.** Map workflows, shape tools/integrations, and translate requirements into a delivery plan. Lead onboarding, adoption, and change management. * **Partner with Product and Research** so platform components and research work streams land in time to support deployment goals. * **Codify solution patterns and evals.** Extract reusable patterns and package field signals to improve product and models. * **Own value cases and ROI.** Set impact hypotheses, baselines, and KPIs; run pre-/post-deployment measurement and report to exec sponsors. **You’ll thrive in this role if you:** * Bring 7+ years of customer‑facing technical delivery leadership. * Track record of successfully leading large, complex, high-stakes customer engagements where customer outcomes depended on tight coordination and fast decision making, ideally involving AI. * Excel in high ambiguity environments. Know how to simplify complex and dynamic work. * Move fluidly between system level understanding and execution level detail; can dive into customer workflows/data, map constraints, sketch arch