Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Forward Deployed Software Engineering sits in a distinctive corner of the SaaS ecosystem where platform capability meets real-world adoption. Rather than building features in isolation, this Paris-based role connects OpenAI’s API platform to production use cases inside customer environments, turning applied AI into deployable systems. That proximity to implementation makes the work relevant to how modern SaaS companies drive value through integrations, solution patterns, and repeatable delivery playbooks.
From a career standpoint, the role builds durable SaaS skills around taking ambiguous requirements to working software, then translating outcomes into reusable abstractions. The cross-functional exposure described, spanning Sales, Solutions, Customer Success, Product, and Research, mirrors how many SaaS platforms scale: feedback loops from the field inform roadmap and developer experience. Experience gained here tends to transfer to platform engineering, solutions architecture, and product-oriented engineering roles across API-first SaaS companies.
This position fits engineers who like alternating between deep technical execution and stakeholder alignment, and who are comfortable representing engineering in customer-facing settings. It will suit someone who enjoys iterative prototyping that graduates into production deployments, and who can operate effectively with travel and a hybrid cadence while maintaining high engineering standards.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
About the team
OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team partners with customers to turn research breakthroughs into production systems. We embed deeply with users to solve high-leverage problems. We move quickly from prototype to deployment and surface patterns that shape the platform. We operate at the intersection of customer delivery and core development. We work closely with Product, Research, and Go-To-Market (GTM).
About the Role
We are looking for customer-focused software engineers to build effective custom software that leverages OpenAI’s APIs to solve real customer problems. As an FDSWE, you will work with our customers and OpenAI Forward Deployed Engineers to design and implement scalable solutions that solve their most difficult problems. You will design abstractions to solve customer problems, and then use them to scale our speed and quality of delivery across all Forward Deployed engagements.
You will collaborate closely with Sales, Solutions Engineering, Solutions Architects, and Customer Success Managers who work on the same account. You will also work with our Research and Applied Product and Engineering teams to provide insightful customer feedback.
This role is based in Paris. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week. We offer relocation assistance. Travel up to 50% is required.
In this role, you will:
Embed deeply with strategic customers to understand their business challenges and technical requirements in detail.
Design, architect, and develop full-stack solutions using an experiment-driven, iterative approach.
Prepare detailed scopes of work and project plans for both proof-of-concept prototypes and full production deployments.
Work hands-on with customers' technical teams as a technical expert and trusted advisor, coding side-by-side to drive projects to completion on their infrastructure.
Collaborate with Product, Research and Applied teams to ensure seamless customer experiences, project success and actionable product feedback
Contribute to internal knowledge bases, codifying best practices and sharing insights gained from customer engagements to scale the Forward Deployed Engineering function.
You’ll thrive in this role if you:
7+ years of professional full stack engineering experience (excluding internships) in relevant roles at tech and product-driven companies - customer-facing experience is highly desirable
Former founder, or early engineer at a startup who has built a product from scratch is a plus
Experience with relational databases like Postgres/MySQL
Have a bias for action and willingness to work iteratively with your customers to deliver the right solution that solves their problem.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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