Applied AI Engineering Manager, Startups (Greenfield)

OpenAI, Inc.; Paris; On-site; EUR 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking an Applied AI Engineering Manager, Startups, Greenfield to lead and scale our Startups Applied AI Engineering team. You will coach engineers, drive production deployments, and partner with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Research to deliver high-impact outcomes for startup customers.

You will set vision, build repeatable playbooks, and balance urgent customer needs with long-term platform strategy, while fostering safety and responsible AI practices across fast-moving customer

Responsibilities

• Craft and continuously refine the strategic vision and operating model for the Startups Applied AI Engineering team, aligning it with OpenAI’s broader company objectives and the evolving needs of high-growth startup customers.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of high-performing technical ICs supporting startup customers across AI-native, developer-led, and product-led companies.
• Help startups move from early experimentation to production usage by identifying technical blockers, advising on architecture, and driving practical paths to deployment.
• Lead technical strategy for priority competitive pursuits, coaching engineers on workload discovery, representative evaluations, quality and cost optimisation, and migration planning.
• Partner closely with Sales to determine where technical engagement can accelerate adoption, production usage, and long-term account growth.
• Represent the technical voice of startup customers by synthesizing high-signal feedback around developer experience, product gaps, deployment blockers, model performance, and emerging use cases.
• Translate recurring startup needs into repeatable playbooks, starter packs, reference architectures, internal tooling, and customer-facing assets that help the broader team move faster.
• Serve as a senior technical escalation point for priority startup customers, including founder-, CTO-, and technical executive-level conversations.
• Balance urgent customer needs with OpenAI’s broader product and platform priorities, especially for niche features and accelerated roadmap changes.
• Coach Applied AI Engineers on technical quality, customer judgment, prioritization, executive communication, and cross-functional partnership.
• Work closely with VC Partnerships, Marketing, and developer-facing teams to turn ecosystem relationships into technical engagement and sustained adoption.

Job description

OpenAI is seeking an Applied AI Engineering Manager, Startups, Greenfield to lead and scale our Startups Applied AI Engineering team. You will coach engineers, drive production deployments, and partner with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Research to deliver high-impact outcomes for startup customers.

You will set vision, build repeatable playbooks, and balance urgent customer needs with long-term platform strategy, while fostering safety and responsible AI practices across fast-moving customer