OpenAI FDE Team Grows to 15 Engineers

OpenAI launched its Forward Deployed Engineering team in early 2025 to bridge the gap between model capabilities and real-world use. By mid-2025, the team employed around 15 FDEs working with a large semiconductor customer on over 10 use cases. The initiative achieved roughly 48% time savings and 22% performance improvements through AI-based directed test generation and kernel optimization.