OpenAI will add 200 jobs in Ireland, with forward deployed engineers at a new Dublin Applied AI Lab

OpenAI announced on 12 October 2026 that it will create 200 additional jobs in Ireland, supported by IDA Ireland. Many of the roles will staff a new Applied AI Lab at its EU headquarters in Dublin, which is meant to help European businesses deploy advanced AI. The company currently employs about 120 people in Ireland, and the new roles come on top of 250 announced in July, for a total commitment of at least 450.

The technical roles named for the Applied AI Lab include forward deployed engineers who work directly with customers to build and deploy AI applications, alongside solutions engineers and privacy engineers. Hiring will also cover sales and user operations. The roles will be based at OpenAI's new EU headquarters at the Tropical Fruit Warehouse, which it expects to occupy from December 2026.

For FDEs, this is one of the clearest signs yet that OpenAI is building customer-deployment capacity in Europe rather than serving it from the US. It follows Dublin FDE postings on OpenAI's careers site and earlier European FDE openings in cities such as Zurich and Paris. Engineers in or willing to move to Ireland should expect a sizeable new local employer for hands-on deployment work.

OpenAI also said it will extend its OpenAI for Ireland programme, including a Founder Cafe with Dogpatch Labs that will train 150 Irish founders on ChatGPT, Codex and the API. The announcement came days before Ireland hosts the International AI Summit in Dublin on 14 October.