OpenAI is hiring Forward Deployed Engineers in Seattle, with $185K–$300K base and 50% travel

OpenAI has posted a Forward Deployed Engineer opening in Seattle on its official careers site. The role sits on the Forward Deployed Engineering team, which partners with strategic customers to take frontier models from research into production systems.

FDEs own discovery, technical scoping, system design, build, and production rollout alongside customer engineering teams. Success is measured by production adoption, workflow impact, and eval-driven feedback that feeds back into product and model roadmaps. The posting asks for 5+ years of engineering or technical deployment experience with customer-facing work, production code across frontend and backend, and experience building or deploying LLM-powered systems.

The Seattle role is hybrid (three days a week in office), offers relocation assistance, and expects travel up to 50%. Base pay is listed at $185K–$300K plus equity. For candidates watching OpenAI’s FDE footprint, Seattle joins openings the company has also listed in other hubs, and it is one of the few FDE postings that publishes a clear US base band.