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OpenAI's Applied AI Engineering team partners with customers to move from experimentation to production using OpenAI's frontier AI technologies. The Startups segment focuses on fast-moving, high-growth companies building new products and businesses directly on AI.
As Manager of Applied AI Engineering for Startups, you will lead and scale OpenAI's technical engagement motion with high-growth startups. You'll operate in a high-velocity environment where founders, CTOs, and technical teams expect speed, judgment, and hands-on problem-solving. The role balances team leadership, technical depth, customer prioritization, and cross-functional influence across Sales, Product, Engineering, Research, and go-to-market teams.
Key responsibilities include:
- Defining OpenAI's strategic approach to supporting startup customers at scale, identifying where deep technical engagement unlocks outsized impact
- Leading and mentoring a team of technical individual contributors supporting AI-native, developer-led, and product-led startup companies
- Helping startups move from experimentation to production by identifying technical blockers, advising on architecture, and driving practical deployment paths
- Partnering with Sales to determine where technical engagement accelerates adoption and long-term account growth
- Synthesizing customer feedback on developer experience, product gaps, deployment blockers, and emerging use cases
- Creating repeatable playbooks, starter packs, reference architectures, and internal tooling to help the team scale
- Serving as senior technical escalation for priority startup customers, including founder and CTO conversations
- Balancing urgent customer needs with OpenAI's broader product and platform priorities
- Coaching Applied AI Engineers on technical quality, customer judgment, prioritization, and cross-functional partnership
- Partnering across teams to improve how OpenAI supports startups from early adoption through scaled production
Ideal candidates have proven experience founding, scaling, or operating in early-stage startups in technical leadership roles. You should have a strong track record building and leading technical, customer-facing teams in high-growth environments, with deep technical knowledge of APIs, platform products, AI/ML systems, developer workflows, and production deployment. You demonstrate strong judgment about when to invest deeply in strategic customers versus building repeatable mechanisms, operate with speed and pragmatism, and are committed to safe and beneficial AI development.
