Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Healthcare - NYC
Forward Deployed Engineer · Senior · Full Time
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Role
What you'll do.
Join OpenAI's Forward Deployed Engineering team as a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to own end-to-end deployments of production AI systems within healthcare organizations. You'll translate complex payer, provider, and health system workflows into scalable, regulated AI solutions while leading technical discovery, architecture, implementation, evaluation, and productionization. This role requires deep technical expertise in AI system deployment, healthcare interoperability standards, and regulated enterprise environments, with the opportunity to shape repeatable deployment architectures across the healthcare industry.
Responsibilities
- End-to-End Deployment Ownership: Own the complete technical lifecycle of AI system deployments within healthcare organizations, from initial customer discovery and workflow scoping through architecture design, hands-on implementation, rigorous evaluation, production deployment, adoption enablement, and knowledge handoff to customer teams.
- Healthcare Workflow Translation: Partner credibly with customer engineers, operators, and domain experts to frame ambiguous problems, define technical scope, and translate payer workflows, provider operations, and health-system requirements into precise technical requirements and measurable business outcomes.
- Production AI System Architecture and Implementation: Design and implement production-grade AI applications and agentic systems that seamlessly integrate with customer infrastructure, enterprise APIs, data platforms, electronic health records (EHR), claims systems, and operational tools while maintaining performance and reliability at scale.
- Regulated Compliance and Security Implementation: Build systems with comprehensive safeguards for protected health information (PHI), ensure HIPAA compliance, implement privacy controls, security protocols, authorization frameworks, governance structures, auditability requirements, and other critical compliance requirements for regulated healthcare delivery environments.
- Evaluation Framework and Launch Readiness: Define and operationalize comprehensive evaluation strategies, validation evidence collection, human-review workflows, escalation paths, and launch criteria that measure model and system quality against customer-specific acceptance thresholds and performance benchmarks.
- Continuous Improvement and Observability: Use evaluation results, error analysis, observability metrics, and customer feedback loops to iteratively improve system reliability, performance, model selection, workflow impact, and production readiness based on real-world deployment data.
- Knowledge Extraction and Architecture Codification: Distill deployment learnings into reusable reference architectures, healthcare interoperability and integration patterns, evaluation harnesses, security controls, compliance templates, and technical primitives that accelerate future deployments across healthcare and regulated enterprise environments.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Production AI System Deployment
Demonstrated experience designing, building, and operating production AI and machine learning systems at scale, including model evaluation, performance optimization, and reliability engineering for mission-critical applications.
Enterprise Systems Integration
Strong hands-on experience integrating complex systems with enterprise APIs, data platforms, cloud infrastructure, and third-party services; ability to navigate and work with legacy systems and modern cloud architectures.
Healthcare Interoperability Standards
Working knowledge of healthcare data standards and interoperability protocols including HL7, FHIR, DICOM, and experience with Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems such as Epic, Oracle Health/Cerner, MEDITECH, or comparable platforms.
Regulatory and Compliance Architecture
Understanding of HIPAA compliance, protected health information (PHI) handling, security controls, data governance frameworks, audit requirements, and compliance considerations specific to healthcare systems and regulated enterprises.
Full-Stack System Ownership
Ability to own technical systems end-to-end across multiple layers including infrastructure, backend services, data pipelines, model integration, and frontend interfaces; comfort working across the complete technical stack.
Education
Computer Science or Related Field
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or equivalent practical experience demonstrating strong foundational computer science knowledge and software engineering principles.
Experience
Senior-Level Technical Leadership
Minimum 6+ years of software engineering, ML/AI engineering, solutions engineering, technical consulting, or comparable experience with demonstrated technical depth and proven ability to make sound technical decisions in ambiguous, complex environments.
Hands-On Complex Systems Deployment
Extensive personal ownership of technical discovery, architecture, implementation, evaluation, and productionization for complex customer-facing or enterprise systems; track record of successfully delivering sophisticated technical solutions.
Healthcare Domain Experience
Demonstrated experience with healthcare organizations, either as a forward deployed engineer, customer engineer, or engineer embedded within payers, providers, or health systems; familiarity with healthcare operational workflows, revenue cycle management, patient access, or clinical operations.
Enterprise Solution Delivery
Prior experience shipping complex systems through customer engineering roles, forward deployment, technical consulting, solutions architecture, healthcare infrastructure company positions, or technical founding/early engineering leadership roles.
Regulated Enterprise Deployment
Experience working in regulated enterprise environments with strict compliance, security, and governance requirements; ability to design solutions that meet stringent regulatory and operational constraints.
Skills
Required
Python
Production-level Python development for building AI applications, data processing pipelines, backend services, and system integration code; expertise in Python ecosystem tools and libraries.
Machine Learning System Design
Understanding of machine learning model evaluation, prompt engineering, agentic system design, model selection, and integration of large language models into production workflows; ability to assess model suitability for specific use cases.
API Design and Integration
Strong capability to design, implement, and integrate REST APIs and modern API architectures; experience integrating third-party services, healthcare APIs, and enterprise systems.
Data Architecture
Proficiency in designing data pipelines, data warehousing concepts, ETL processes, and working with structured and unstructured data at enterprise scale; understanding of data governance and security.
Cloud Infrastructure
Hands-on experience with major cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) for building scalable, reliable systems; comfort with containerization, orchestration, and cloud-native architectural patterns.
Healthcare Workflow Understanding
Deep understanding of healthcare operational workflows including payer processes, claims management, provider operations, clinical decision support, or revenue cycle management; ability to translate healthcare requirements into technical solutions.
Preferred
Large Language Models and Generative AI
Nice to haveHands-on experience deploying and optimizing large language models, working with GPT models, prompt engineering at scale, fine-tuning approaches, and evaluating model performance in production environments.
HL7 and FHIR Standards
Nice to havePractical experience working with HL7 v2, FHIR standards, and health information exchange protocols; familiarity with translating between different healthcare data formats and standards.
Electronic Health Record Systems
Nice to haveDirect experience working with major EHR platforms such as Epic, Oracle Health/Cerner, or MEDITECH; understanding of EHR architecture, data models, integration approaches, and clinical workflows.
TypeScript/Node.js
Nice to haveProficiency in TypeScript and Node.js for building scalable backend services, APIs, and full-stack applications; experience with modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks and tooling.
PostgreSQL and Relational Databases
Nice to haveAdvanced proficiency with PostgreSQL and relational database design; expertise in query optimization, data modeling, and scaling database systems for high-concurrency applications.
Observability and Monitoring
Nice to haveExperience designing comprehensive observability solutions including logging, metrics collection, distributed tracing, alerting, and dashboarding for production systems; familiarity with tools like Datadog, Prometheus, or ELK.
Security and Compliance Engineering
Nice to haveExperience designing security architectures, implementing encryption, managing access controls, conducting threat modeling, and ensuring compliance with regulatory frameworks like HIPAA, SOC2, or ISO 27001.
Technical Consulting and Customer Engagement
Nice to havePrior experience in solutions engineering, technical consulting, or customer-facing technical roles; demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and translate business requirements into technical specifications.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·USD 198,000 – 294,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Equity and Stock Options
Competitive equity grants providing ownership stake in OpenAI; typical for senior-level positions at growth-stage AI companies with significant upside potential.
Comprehensive Health Insurance
Medical, dental, and vision coverage; OpenAI offers competitive health benefits comparable to leading technology companies.
401(k) Retirement Plan
Employer-sponsored 401(k) plan with competitive matching contributions for long-term retirement savings.
Relocation Assistance
Financial support and resources for relocating to New York City; valuable benefit for candidates joining from other locations.
Professional Development and Learning
Opportunities to work with cutting-edge AI technology, access to OpenAI research and tools, and exposure to industry-leading machine learning advancements.
Flexible Work Arrangement
Hybrid work model with 3 days per week in NYC office; provides work-life balance while maintaining team collaboration and company culture.
Paid Time Off
Competitive PTO policy including vacation days, sick leave, and company holidays; consistent with industry standards for senior engineering roles.
Mental Health and Wellness
Access to mental health services, wellness programs, and employee assistance resources supporting holistic employee wellbeing.
Full posting
Original listing.
About the team
OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team partners with healthcare organizations to deploy production AI systems across clinical, operational, and member-facing workflows. We work at the boundary of customer deployment and core platform development, using customer engagements to define repeatable architectures, evaluations, integrations, and operating standards for complex, regulated healthcare environments.
About the role
We are hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to own end-to-end deployments of our models within healthcare organizations, including payers, providers, health systems, and healthcare technology companies. You will lead technical discovery, architecture, implementation, evaluation, productionization, and handoff, translating complex customer workflows, data, infrastructure, and regulatory constraints into production AI systems.
You will measure success through production adoption, measurable workflow impact, and evaluation loops that establish customer-specific benchmarks, acceptance criteria, and launch readiness. You’ll collaborate directly with customer technical and operational teams, alongside internal Business, Research, Product, Engineering, and Security partners, to deliver solutions and translate deployment learnings into product improvements. This role owns the technical solution; ownership of the commercial or executive relationship is not required.
This role is based New York City. 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
Own the technical solution end to end, from customer discovery and workflow scoping through architecture, hands-on implementation, evaluation, production deployment, adoption, and handoff.
Partner credibly with customer engineers, operators, and domain experts to frame ambiguous problems, define scope, and translate payer, provider, or health-system workflows into technical requirements and measurable outcomes.
Design and implement production AI applications and agentic systems that integrate with customer infrastructure, enterprise APIs, data platforms, electronic health records, claims systems, and operational tools.
Build with appropriate safeguards for protected health information (PHI), HIPAA, privacy, security, authorization, governance, auditability, and other regulated-delivery requirements.
Define and operationalize evaluations, validation evidence, human-review workflows, escalation paths, and launch criteria that measure model and system quality against customer-specific acceptance thresholds.
Use evaluation results, error analysis, observability, and customer feedback to improve system reliability, performance, model selection, workflow impact, and production readiness.
Distill deployment learnings into reference architectures, interoperability and integration patterns, evaluation harnesses, security controls, and reusable technical primitives for healthcare and other regulated enterprise environments.
You might thrive in this role if you
Bring 6+ years of software engineering, ML/AI engineering, solutions engineering, technical consulting, or comparable experience, with the technical depth
Have operated as a senior engineer, tech lead, or deployment owner who is trusted to make technical decisions in ambiguous environments.
Are deeply hands-on and have personally owned technical discovery, architecture, implementation, evaluation, productionization, and handoff for complex customer-facing or enterprise systems.
Have healthcare experience including payer workflows, provider operations, EHR systems, or interoperability standards such as Epic, HL7, and FHIR.
Have exposure to provider or health-system workflows such as clinical operations, revenue cycle management, patient access, or contact centers; or to EHR and interoperability technologies such as Epic, Oracle Health/Cerner, MEDITECH, HL7, FHIR, or health information exchanges.
Have shipped complex systems as a forward deployed or customer engineer, an engineer inside a payer, provider, or health system, a builder at an EHR, interoperability, revenue cycle, payer-tech, or healthcare infrastructure company, a hands-on technical consultant or integrator, a solutions architect for regulated enterprises, or a technical founder or early engineering leader.
Apply strong judgment to AI evaluation, privacy, security, governance, and reliability. Prior FDE titles, clinical credentials, and experience across every healthcare domain are not required.
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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