Manager, Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Life Sciences

OpenAI; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 252,000 - 335,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance

Travel up to 25%

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Life Sciences Forward Deployed Engineer Manager in New York City to lead a team delivering production-grade AI systems for drug discovery and development workflows. You will own delivery outcomes, set technical direction, and remain hands-on as a player-coach in regulated environments.

The role requires guiding multi-disciplinary teams across data, workflows, infrastructure, security, and scientific stakeholders, with travel up to 25% and relocation support for the right

Qualifications

• 8+ years of engineering or technical delivery experience.
• 2+ years managing customer-facing or systems engineering teams.
• Experience in life sciences R&D or regulated data environments.
• Ability to write production-grade code and guide architectural decisions.
• Translate scientific and technical tradeoffs into delivery plans and outcomes.
• Strong leadership with clarity, judgment and strategic thinking.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of FDEs delivering production AI systems across regulated life sciences environments.
• Be accountable for end-to-end delivery outcomes, balancing scope, speed, robustness and risk.
• Coach engineers with high technical standards and clear expectations for ownership.
• Operate as a player-coach, contributing to production systems while guiding direction.
• Guide teams through multi-workstream engagements across data, workflows, infrastructure, security and stakeholders.
• Run evaluation loops and convert results into roadmap input.

Skills

Leadership

People management

Customer delivery

Life sciences domain

Production AI systems

Regulated environments

Technical coaching

Job description

Manager, Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Life Sciences

Forward Deployed Engineering - New York City

About the team

OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team partners with global pharma and biotech, CROs, and research institutions to deploy production‑grade AI systems across the R&D value chain. We operate at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development, converting early deployments into repeatable system standards and evaluation practices that scale across regulated environments.

About the role

As a Life Sciences FDE Manager, you’ll lead a team of FDEs delivering production AI systems across drug discovery and development workflows. You’ll own delivery outcomes and team leverage while staying hands‑on as a player‑coach. This includes building and shipping alongside the team, setting technical direction, and maintaining a high bar for production‑grade systems in regulated environments.

We measure success through the health and quality of your FDE team, production adoption and measurable workflow impact, the quality of eval‑driven feedback delivered back to Product and Research, and the repeatability of deployment patterns across life sciences customers.

This role is based in New York City. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week. We offer relocation assistance. This role will require travel up to 25%.

In this role you will

• Lead and grow a team of FDEs delivering production AI systems across regulated life sciences environments
• Be accountable for your team’s end‑to‑end delivery outcomes, balancing scope, speed, robustness, and risk in high‑stakes deployments
• Coach and develop engineers through direct feedback, high technical standards, and clear expectations for execution and ownership
• Operate as a player‑coach, directly contributing to production systems while leading, coaching, and setting technical direction
• Guide teams through ambiguous, multi‑workstream engagements spanning data, workflows, infrastructure, security, and scientific stakeholders
• Run evaluation loops that measure model and system quality against workflow‑specific scientific benchmarks, then convert results into crisp roadmap input

You might thrive in this role if you

• Bring 8+ years of engineering or technical delivery experience, including 2+ years managing high‑performing customer‑facing or systems‑oriented engineering teams
• Have led complex, high‑pressure technical programs from prototype through sustained production use in regulated environments
• Have experience working in or adjacent to life sciences R&D, clinical research, scientific software, or regulated scientific data environments
• Write and review production‑grade code and can guide architectural decisions across backend, data, and ML‑adjacent systems
• Translate scientific and technical tradeoffs into clear delivery plans, risk posture, and measurable outcomes across scientific, clinical, technical, and executive audiences
• Elevate team performance through clarity, judgment, and technical credibility
• Turn field experience into precise, actionable feedback for Product, Research, and GTM teams

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general‑purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

OpenAI’s Affir­mative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement .

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US‑based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non‑public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

Compensation

$252K – $335K + Offers Equity