Manager, Forward Deployed Engineering - Munich

About the role

OpenAI's Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team partners with customers to turn research breakthroughs into production systems, embedding with users to move fast from prototype to deployment. As a foundational FDE manager based in Munich, you will lead FDE through high-stakes, ambiguous customer deployments and own technical and business value outcomes end to end, growing a team that operates under pressure. The role works closely with Product, Research, Sales and GTM so that fieldwork informs roadmap priorities and supports safe deployment at scale.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of FDE engineers delivering production systems with frontier models.
• Own end-to-end delivery outcomes through clarity, speed, tight coordination and technical quality.
• Codify what works into tools, playbooks and roadmap inputs that benefit OpenAI and the wider developer community.
• Spot early warning signs in product behavior, customer environments or delivery practices and raise them with urgency.
• Use judgement to decide what needs action and what does not.
• Set a high bar for FDE performance and give direct, actionable feedback to support each person's growth.
• Define how field teams are staffed and supported so they can scale without added complexity.

Required profile

• 8+ years of engineering or technical delivery experience, including 2+ years managing high-performing FDE or customer-facing engineers.
• Experience leading high-pressure technical projects from prototype to production.
• Able to simplify complex work and make fast, sound decisions under pressure.
• Able to turn field experience into actionable feedback for Product and Research.

Required skills

• Writing and reviewing production-grade code across frontend and backend using JavaScript or Python.

What we offer

• Hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week.
• Relocation assistance for new employees.
• Travel of up to 25% required.