Manager, Applied AI Engineering (Digital Natives)

The role

You will lead a team of Applied AI Engineers who work with strategic technology and software customers. You will set the strategy and operating model for the Digital Natives team and serve as a senior technical partner to customers.

What you will do

• Own the strategy and operating model for the Digital Natives Applied AI Engineering team.
• Lead, hire, mentor, and develop a team of high-performing Applied AI Engineers.
• Guide the team in working hands-on with customers to design, build, and scale AI applications.
• Partner with Sales to prioritize technical engagement across strategic customers.
• Serve as a senior technical partner and escalation point for priority customers.
• Represent the technical voice of Digital Native customers to Product, Engineering, and Research.
• Translate customer needs into repeatable technical patterns, architectures, and playbooks.
• Coach Applied AI Engineers on technical quality, customer judgment, and communication.
• Help customers understand and apply OpenAI's newest capabilities.
• Champion the safe, reliable, and effective application of OpenAI's technology.

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in deeply technical, customer-facing roles such as applied engineering, solutions architecture, deployment engineering, or technical consulting.
• 2+ years of experience leading technical teams.
• Experience building or deploying generative AI, machine learning, developer platforms, or cloud-based software solutions in production environments.
• Strong technical depth across APIs, AI/ML systems, application architecture, cloud infrastructure, and modern developer workflows.
• Hands-on software engineering experience.
• Fluency with programming languages such as Python or JavaScript.
• Ability to work directly with highly technical engineering and product teams as well as CTOs and other executive stakeholders.
• Ability to translate ambiguous customer and business problems into clear technical approaches.
• Strong judgment about when to invest in individual customer challenges versus repeatable solutions.
• Effective communicator.
• Commitment to helping both customers and teammates succeed.
• Personal commitment to fostering the safe and beneficial development of AI.

Benefits

• Relocation assistance to new employees

About the company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity.