> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Backend Software Engineer, Gov

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/36c1a30a9341507f

OpenAI posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs in Washington, DC and 2 more, at $207,000–$385,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Build and deploy customer-facing ChatGPT and OpenAI API capabilities for public sector customers across on-premises and cloud environments. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [OpenAI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/openai)

Posted Oct 17, 2025 by OpenAI · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$207,000–$385,000** + equity Washington, DC +2 Hybrid Full-time

Build and deploy customer-facing ChatGPT and OpenAI API capabilities for public sector customers across on-premises and cloud environments.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F36c1a30a9341507f&placement=top)
- [View posting at OpenAI](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/a90cdb7c-1c33-4fca-9a96-26c236006f14/application)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$207K–$385K Above the median

Midpoint $296K · median $190K

This job $207K to $385K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

[Compare pay across all OpenAI postings](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/openai)

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations (not covered)

Travel **Required, amount not stated**

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **9+ years** relevant engineering experience at technology and product-driven companies

Background

- **Software engineering**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 9+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in Washington, DC · San Francisco, CA · +1 more. Could you work in one of these?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: Washington, DC · San Francisco, CA · Seattle, WA

- **Work arrangement**: Hybrid

- **Remote work restrictions**: Based in Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; or Seattle, WA.

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Travel**: Travel required, amount not stated

- **Pay**:

## More like this

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### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/bf9e9b74b26a8568)

Washington, DC 7w ago

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San Francisco, CA · New York, NY Hybrid 4mo ago

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- [Other jobs at OpenAI (52)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/openai)

## The job description from OpenAI

Posted by OpenAI on Oct 17, 2025

### About the Team

Join the engineering teams that bring OpenAI’s ideas safely to the world!

The Applied Engineering team works across research, engineering, product, and design to bring OpenAI’s technology to consumers and businesses. We seek to learn from deployment and distribute the benefits of AI, while ensuring that this powerful tool is used responsibly and safely. Safety is more important to us than unfettered growth.

### About the Role

We’re seeking Software Engineers who can solve complex, high-impact problems across our stack. In this role, you’ll join a nimble team driving the deployment of OpenAI’s technology into new environments and infrastructure that power critical missions in the public sector.

You’ll work cross-functionally with product, security, and compliance teams to build the functionality needed to deliver a scalable, reliable platform. You’ll also partner directly with customers to design and build new products and features that create real-world impact.

From launching net-new capabilities to optimizing how we serve inference in unique, high-stakes environments, this role offers both breadth and technical depth—giving you the opportunity to shape the future of OpenAI’s technology where it matters most.

This role is based in Washington D.C., San Francisco, CA or Seattle, WA. Occasional travel to customer sites is required for this role.

This position requires U.S. person status as defined by the applicable government contract.

### In this role, you will

- Own the development of new customer-facing ChatGPT and OpenAI API features end-to-end, both on-premises and in the cloud, for our public sector customers.
- Partner and directly embed with teams across the business, including engineering, security, and compliance, to enable our products to work within the unique constraints of new environments.
- Talk to users to understand their problems and design solutions to address them
- Work with the research team to get relevant feedback and iterate on their latest models, developing solutions specific for public sector customers at both the model & data layers.
- Collaborate with a cross-functional team of engineers, researchers, product managers, designers, and operations folks to create cutting-edge products
- Optimize applications for speed and scale

### You might thrive in this role if you

- 9+ years of relevant engineering experience at tech and product-driven companies
- Proficiency with JavaScript, React, and other web technologies
- Proficiency with some backend language (we use Python)
- Some experience with underlying infrastructure primitives like Kubernetes and Terraform
- Interest in AI/ML (direct experience not required)
- Ability to move fast in an environment where things are sometimes loosely defined and may have competing priorities or deadlines
- An interest in enabling public sector use cases with unique requirements

### 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.

To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.

OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy

At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

[View posting at OpenAI](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/openai/a90cdb7c-1c33-4fca-9a96-26c236006f14/application)

## About OpenAI

Builds frontier AI models and ships them through ChatGPT consumer and enterprise products, Codex, and developer APIs.

Late-stage private · 5000+ people

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- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
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