Forward Deployed Engineering Manager, Financial Services

OpenAI•New York, NY

4d•$302,000 - $385,000•Hybrid

About The Position

OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team partners with banks, asset managers, insurers, and private capital firms to deploy production-grade AI systems in high-stakes financial environments. The team works across customer delivery and platform development, translating frontier model capabilities into reliable, auditable systems with measurable business impact. It turns early deployments into repeatable solution patterns, operating standards, and evaluation practices for regulated financial institutions. The Forward Deployed Engineering Manager will lead the FDE team through ambiguous, high-stakes financial services deployments and own technical and business-value outcomes end to end. The manager will grow a team that operates effectively under pressure and helps OpenAI learn from field deployments. The work involves collaborating with customers who are experts in areas such as investment banking, trading, risk, compliance, underwriting, research, operations, and investment decision-making, and translating their workflows, data constraints, and regulatory requirements into production systems. The role partners closely with Product, Research, Sales, and GTM so fieldwork informs roadmap priorities, enables new exploration, and supports safe deployment at scale. Success is measured by the team’s shipping consistency, the quality of insights delivered to Research and Product, and the durability of the team and delivery model. The position is based in New York City, follows a hybrid model with three days per week in the office, and requires travel up to 25%. Relocation assistance is offered to new employees.

Requirements

10+ years of engineering or technical delivery experience.
At least 2 years managing high-performing Forward Deployed Engineering or customer-facing engineering teams.
Experience leading high-pressure technical projects from prototype to production.
Ability to write and review production-grade frontend and backend code using JavaScript or Python.
Ability to simplify complex work and make sound decisions quickly under pressure.
Ability to elevate team performance through clarity rather than process.
Ability to operate urgently in ambiguous or evolving environments.
Ability to translate field experience into actionable feedback for Product and Research.
Ability to build trust with a team by demonstrating calm, focus, and judgment.

Responsibilities

Lead and grow a team of Forward Deployed Engineers delivering production systems with frontier models.
Own end-to-end delivery outcomes through clarity, speed, close coordination, and technical quality.
Turn successful approaches into tools, playbooks, and roadmap inputs that benefit OpenAI and the wider developer community.
Identify early indicators in product behavior, customer environments, or delivery practices and raise them with urgency.
Use judgment to determine which issues require action.
Set a high performance bar for FDEs and support individual growth through direct, actionable feedback.
Define staffing and support approaches for field teams that can scale without added complexity.
Partner with Product, Research, Sales, and GTM to relay field learnings, inform roadmap priorities, and support safe deployment at scale.