OpenAI

Manager, Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Life Sciences

OpenAI$130K — $180K *
Pharmaceuticals & Biotech
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of engineering or technical delivery experience
  • 2+ years managing customer-facing or systems-oriented engineering teams
  • Experience in life sciences R&D, clinical research, or regulated environments
  • Proficient in writing and reviewing production-grade code
  • Ability to translate scientific and technical tradeoffs into clear delivery plans
  • Strong judgment and technical credibility to elevate team performance
  • Experience in delivering actionable feedback to Product and Research teams

Responsibilities

  • Lead and grow a team of FDEs delivering AI systems in regulated environments
  • Accountable for end-to-end delivery outcomes balancing scope, speed, and risk
  • Coach engineers through feedback and high technical standards
  • Serve as a player-coach by contributing to production systems while leading
  • Guide teams through complex, multi-workstream engagements
  • Run evaluation loops measuring system quality against scientific benchmarks
  • Convert evaluation results into actionable roadmap input

Benefits

  • Hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week
  • Relocation assistance
  • Travel opportunities up to 25%
Full Job Description
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 San Francisco. 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 artificial intelligence research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company was founded in 2015 by a group of technology leaders, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and John Schulman. OpenAI's mission is to develop and promote friendly AI for the betterment of humanity. The company has developed a number of cutting-edge AI technologies, including GPT-3, a language processing system that can generate human-like text. OpenAI has received funding from a number of high-profile investors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Learn more about OpenAI
Size
100 employees
Industry
Founded
2015

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