Head of Startups Applied AI Engineering

FDE Times; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking an Applied AI Engineering Manager for Startups to lead and scale the Startups Applied AI Engineering motion, delivering production-grade AI deployments for high-growth customers.

You will guide a team of senior engineers, work across Sales, Product, Engineering, and Research, and ensure practical paths to deployment while maintaining product strategy and quality. This role emphasizes speed, judgment, and customer outcomes.

Qualifications

• Experience founding or leading technical startups, with product or customer outcomes ownership.
• Proven ability to build and lead technical, customer-facing teams in high-growth or startup environments.
• Deep technical expertise across APIs, platform products, AI/ML systems, and deployment considerations.

Responsibilities

• Define the strategic vision and operating model for the Startups Applied AI Engineering team.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of technical ICs serving startup customers.
• Help startups move from experimentation to production and advise on architecture.
• Collaborate with Sales to accelerate adoption and account growth.
• Represent the technical voice of startup customers and synthesize feedback.
• Translate startup needs into repeatable playbooks and reference architectures.
• Serve as senior escalation point for priority startup customers.
• Balance urgent customer needs with broader product priorities.
• Coach Applied AI Engineers on quality and cross-functional partnership.
• Partner with Sales, Product, Engineering, Research to scale support.

Skills

Startup leadership

Technical leadership

AI/ML systems

APIs & platform

Deployment at scale

Tools

Cloud platforms

Job description

OpenAI is seeking an Applied AI Engineering Manager for Startups to lead and scale the Startups Applied AI Engineering motion, delivering production-grade AI deployments for high-growth customers.

You will guide a team of senior engineers, work across Sales, Product, Engineering, and Research, and ensure practical paths to deployment while maintaining product strategy and quality. This role emphasizes speed, judgment, and customer outcomes.