Technical Deployment Lead, Forward Deployed Engineering - London

OpenAI, Inc.

Job Overview

Location

London, UK

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• As a Technical Deployment Lead in OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team, you will define how the company delivers complex AI systems to customers, translating research breakthroughs into production-ready solutions that drive measurable business impact and adoption.
• You will own end-to-end technical delivery for multiple interdependent workstreams, embedding with customer teams to map workflows, shape integrations, and ensure deployments are shipped on time, adopted successfully, and aligned with customer success criteria.
• The Forward Deployed Engineering team operates at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development, partnering directly with clients to turn OpenAI’s research into real-world systems while feeding field insights back to Product and Research to shape future roadmaps.
• In this founding role, you will have high autonomy and trust to make sequencing decisions, manage dependencies, and drive 0→1 prototypes through MVP and scale, with success measured by deployment impact, reliability, operating leverage, and product influence.
• You will partner with Product and Research teams to ensure platform components and research workstreams are delivered in time to support deployment goals, while codifying reusable solution patterns and evaluation frameworks from field experiences.
• You will own value cases and ROI by setting impact hypotheses, establishing baselines and KPIs, running pre- and post-deployment measurements, and reporting outcomes to executive sponsors to demonstrate the business value of AI deployments.
• Day-to-day, you will run engineering execution across OpenAI FDE, Researchers, and Customer Engineers, tracking progress, unblocking dependencies, making real-time trade-offs on scope and priority, and protecting the critical path to keep delivery on schedule.
• You will lead onboarding, adoption, and change management efforts with customer teams, translating technical requirements into actionable plans and shaping tools and integrations to fit seamlessly into customer workflows.
• This role requires frequent customer engagement, with travel expected up to 50% of the time, often involving onsite work to accelerate delivery and build strong partnerships with client technical and business stakeholders.
• You will bring deep technical fluency to discussions, pressure-test architectures, make informed trade-offs, and translate complex technical decisions into clear, actionable insights for business leaders and executives.
• Success in this role depends on your ability to thrive in high-ambiguity environments, simplify complex problems, and move fluidly between system-level strategy and execution-level detail to ship systems that solve real customer challenges.
• You will leverage expertise in at least one major sector (e.g., healthcare, energy, financial services, semiconductors, IT) to elevate solution framing, build credibility with customers, and tailor AI deployments to industry-specific needs and constraints.
• OpenAI offers a hybrid work model based in London with 3 days in the office per week, relocation assistance, and a mission-driven culture focused on ensuring artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity through safe, responsible deployment.

🎯 Requirements

• 7+ years of customer-facing technical delivery leadership with a track record of leading large, complex, high-stakes engagements where customer outcomes depended on tight coordination and fast decision-making, ideally involving AI or LLM systems.
• Proven ability to excel in high-ambiguity environments, simplify complex and dynamic work, and move fluidly between system-level understanding and execution-level detail to ship systems under uncertainty.
• Strong technical fluency and sharp sequencing instincts, with confidence discussing technical details, pressure-testing architectures, and making informed trade-offs between scope, priority, and resources.
• Experience shipping AI/LLM systems in production, including understanding of solution patterns, integration basics, and common production pitfalls in real-world deployments.
• Demonstrated ability to act as a translator with executive presence — making complex technical trade-offs legible to business leaders and converting strategy into day-to-day technical execution.
• Expertise in at least one major sector (e.g., healthcare, energy, financial services, semiconductors, IT) to elevate solution framing and credibility when working with customer teams.

🏖️ Benefits

• Hybrid work model based in London with 3 days in the office per week, offering flexibility while maintaining team collaboration and connection.
• Relocation assistance provided to support your move to London for this role.
• Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI deployments at the forefront of technology, partnering with leading organizations to solve real-world challenges using OpenAI’s latest models and systems.
• High-trust, high-autonomy environment where you own end-to-end delivery and have the authority to make critical decisions that shape customer outcomes and product direction.
• Exposure to cross-functional collaboration with Product, Research, and Customer Engineering teams, enabling you to influence roadmap and architecture based on real field insights.
• Mission-driven culture at OpenAI focused on ensuring artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity, with a commitment to safety, inclusivity, and responsible innovation.

Skills & Technologies

Senior

Hybrid

Ready to Apply?

Apply Externally

You will be redirected to an external site to apply.

OpenAI, Inc.

Visit Website

About OpenAI, Inc.

OpenAI is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research and deployment company founded in 2015. It develops large-scale AI models such as GPT, DALL-E, and Codex, providing cloud APIs and consumer applications like ChatGPT. Originally established as a non-profit, it later created a capped-profit subsidiary to attract capital while maintaining its mission to ensure artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

View Company Profile

Get more remote jobs like this

Subscribe to the weekly newsletter for similar remote roles and curated hiring updates.

Weekly remote jobs and featured talent.

No spam. Only curated remote roles and product updates. You can unsubscribe anytime.