Platform Engineering Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)
About the team OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) org sits at the intersection of product, engineering, research, and go-to-market. We take frontier platform capabilities into the real world with design partners, turning raw customer signal into shipped software, repeatable patterns, and durable products.
What this role actually needs.
About the team OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) org sits at the intersection of product, engineering, research, and go-to-market. We take frontier platform capabilities into the real world with design partners, turning raw customer signal into shipped software, repeatable patterns, and durable products. Responsibilities: - Guide a focused portfolio of platform bets: Steer direction for a small number of high-signal problems, with clear hypotheses, success criteria, sequencing, and measurable adoption outcomes. - Build and validate with customers: Ensure the team ships working software with design partners, instruments usage and outcomes, and iterates quickly based on real-world adoption and constraints. - Co-develop with long-term owners: Partner early with B2B Platform (and other durable owners) to align on architecture, interfaces, security/governance requirements, and handoff criteria, staying engaged through validation and the path to scale. - Maintain a high engineering bar: Set and enforce standards for design, code quality, testing, observability, and operational readiness appropriate for enterprise use. - Grow and develop the team: Coach and develop engineers through direct feedback, clear expectations, and durable team mechanisms that reinforce execution and ownership. - Operate with high judgment and influence: Make clear tradeoffs under ambiguity, communicate decisions crisply across stakeholders, and drive outcomes through partnership rather than formal authority. Requirements: - Maintain a high engineering bar: Set and enforce standards for design, code quality, testing, observability, and operational readiness appropriate for enterprise use. - Grow and develop the team: Coach and develop engineers through direct feedback, clear expectations, and durable team mechanisms that reinforce execution and ownership. - Operate with high judgment and influence: Make clear tradeoffs under ambiguity, communicate decisions crisply across stakeholders, and drive outcomes through partnership rather than formal authority. - Bring 8+ years of engineering experience , including 2+ years managing high-performance engineers - Are deeply customer-obsessed and can partner credibly with senior stakeholders while keeping a high bar for delivery and technical rigor. - Naturally act as a shepherd: you elevate and refine others’ ideas, sharpen hypotheses, and make disciplined “scale vs pause” calls with clear reasoning. Company context: OpenAI builds frontier AI systems, research infrastructure, and applied products for developers, enterprises, and global users.
Day-to-day expectations
OpenAI lists these responsibilities for the Platform Engineering Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) role.
- Guide a focused portfolio of platform bets: Steer direction for a small number of high-signal problems, with clear hypotheses, success criteria, sequencing, and measurable adoption outcomes.
- Build and validate with customers: Ensure the team ships working software with design partners, instruments usage and outcomes, and iterates quickly based on real-world adoption and constraints.
- Co-develop with long-term owners: Partner early with B2B Platform (and other durable owners) to align on architecture, interfaces, security/governance requirements, and handoff criteria, staying engaged through validation and the path to scale.
- Maintain a high engineering bar: Set and enforce standards for design, code quality, testing, observability, and operational readiness appropriate for enterprise use.
- Grow and develop the team: Coach and develop engineers through direct feedback, clear expectations, and durable team mechanisms that reinforce execution and ownership.
- Operate with high judgment and influence: Make clear tradeoffs under ambiguity, communicate decisions crisply across stakeholders, and drive outcomes through partnership rather than formal authority.
What a strong candidate brings
These requirements are extracted from the source listing and normalized for UpJobz readers.
- Maintain a high engineering bar: Set and enforce standards for design, code quality, testing, observability, and operational readiness appropriate for enterprise use.
- Grow and develop the team: Coach and develop engineers through direct feedback, clear expectations, and durable team mechanisms that reinforce execution and ownership.
- Operate with high judgment and influence: Make clear tradeoffs under ambiguity, communicate decisions crisply across stakeholders, and drive outcomes through partnership rather than formal authority.
- Bring 8+ years of engineering experience , including 2+ years managing high-performance engineers
- Are deeply customer-obsessed and can partner credibly with senior stakeholders while keeping a high bar for delivery and technical rigor.
- Naturally act as a shepherd: you elevate and refine others’ ideas, sharpen hypotheses, and make disciplined “scale vs pause” calls with clear reasoning.
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Platform Engineering Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) is framed against UpJobz source checks, country scope, compensation visibility, and work-authorization signals so candidates can make a faster go/no-go decision.
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Source: jobs.ashbyhq.com · Source ID: b073abb1-cf6c-4fd9-a318-732fdd2f1408 · Confidence: 97/100 · Last checked: May 7, 2026
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