Applied AI Engineer, Startups (Codex)

About the team The Applied AI Engineering team works closely with frontier startups.

We are trusted advisors to, and thought partners with, startups to ensure that OpenAI’s technology is deployed safely and effectively, whilst also partnering with engineering, research, and product to turn those insights into evaluation systems, product improvements, and better model behavior.

This team sits at the intersection of customer reality and model quality. We combine hands-on technical depth with strong product judgment, helping translate complex, high-value use cases into clear signals that can improve both the customer experience and the underlying systems.

About the Role

As an Applied AI Engineer focused on Codex for startups, you will help developers and founders transform how they build and ship software.

You’ll combine hands-on engineering, startup experience, and compelling technical communication to help teams turn the potential of AI coding tools into practical, effective workflows. Presentations and community engagement are central to this role.

You will engage developers and founders through technical talks, live demos, workshops, and programmes across the startup ecosystem, alongside targeted work with individual customers.

You’ll build reusable tools and resources that extend your impact, and bring insights from developers back to OpenAI’s Product, Research, and Engineering teams. This role is well suited to someone who enjoys both hands-on building and sharing what they learn with others.

You should be as excited to lead a room of developers, deliver an engaging presentation, and build relationships across the startup community as you are to explore a technical problem in code—with a focus on sustained adoption and meaningful improvements in how startups work.

In this role, you will: Partner with top startups to identify where Codex can have the greatest impact on how their teams build and ship software. Design and lead technical talks, live demos, workshops,