Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

Shape the Future of AI

At Labelbox were building the critical infrastructure that powers breakthrough AI models at leading research labs and enterprises. Since 2018 weve been pioneering data-centric approaches that are fundamental to AI development and our work becomes even more essential as AI capabilities expand exponentially.

About Labelbox

Were the only company offering three integrated solutions for frontier AI development:

1. Enterprise Platform & Tools: Advanced annotation tools workflow automation and quality control systems that enable teams to produce high-quality training data at scale
2. Frontier Data Labeling Service: Specialized data labeling through Alignerr leveraging subject matter experts for next-generation AI models
3. Expert Marketplace: Connecting AI teams with highly skilled annotators and domain experts for flexible scaling

Why Join Us

• High-Impact Environment: We operate like an early-stage startup focusing on impact over process. Youll take on expanded responsibilities quickly with career growth directly tied to your contributions.
• Technical Excellence: Work at the cutting edge of AI development collaborating with industry leaders and shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
• Innovation at Speed: We celebrate those who take ownership move fast and deliver impact. Our environment rewards high agency and rapid execution.
• Continuous Growth: Every role requires continuous learning and evolution. Youll be surrounded by curious minds solving complex problems at the frontier of AI.
• Clear Ownership: Youll know exactly what youre responsible for and have the autonomy to execute. We empower people to drive results through clear ownership and metrics.

The role

Were hiring a Forward Deployed Engineering Manager to lead the design development and delivery of reinforcement learning environments for agentic AI systems.

Youll manage a team responsible for building sandboxed reproducible environmentsterminal-based workflows browser automation and computer-use simulationsthat power both model training and human-in-the-loop evaluation. This is a hands-on leadership role where youll set technical direction guide execution and stay close to architecture and critical systems.

What Youll Do

• Lead hire and develop a high-performing team of Forward Deployed Engineers setting a high bar for ownership velocity and technical quality
• Own the RL environment roadmap aligning team execution with customer needs and evolving model capabilities
• Oversee development of sandboxed environments (terminal browser tool-augmented workspaces) that support deterministic execution and multi-step agent interaction
• Ensure reliability observability and data integrity through strong instrumentation (logging trajectory capture state snapshotting)
• Drive infrastructure excellence across containerization sandboxing CI/CD automated testing and monitoring
• Partner cross-functionally with data operations product and leading AI labs to define task design evaluation protocols and environment requirements
• Enable rapid prototyping and iteration helping the team move from ambiguous requirements to production-ready systems quickly
• Stay close to the technical detailsreviewing architecture unblocking complex issues and guiding design decisions

What Were Looking For

Required

• 5 years of software engineering experience (Python)
• 2 years of experience managing or leading engineers in fast-paced environments
• Strong experience with containerization and sandboxing (Docker Firecracker or similar)
• Solid understanding of reinforcement learning fundamentals (MDPs reward design episode structure observation/action spaces)
• Background in infrastructure developer tooling or distributed systems
• Strong debugging skills and systems thinking across layered containerized environments
• Ability to operate in ambiguity and translate loosely defined problems into clear execution plans
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills

Preferred

• Experience building or working with RL environments (Gym PettingZoo) or agent benchmarks (SWE-bench WebArena OSWorld TerminalBench)
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (GCP or AWS)
• Prior experience in AI/ML platforms data companies or research environments
• Contributions to open-source projects in RL agents or developer tooling

Why This Role Matters

RL environment quality is a critical bottleneck in advancing agentic AI. Poorly designed or unreliable environments introduce noise into training loops and directly impact model performance.

In this role youll lead the team building the environments that define how models learnworking across a range of cutting-edge projects with leading AI labs. Alignerr offers the speed and ownership of a startup with the scale and resources of Labelbox giving you the opportunity to have outsized impact on the future of AI.

About Alignerr

Alignerr is Labelboxs human data organization powering next-generation AI through high-quality training data reinforcement learning environments and evaluation systems. We partner directly with leading AI labs to build the data and infrastructure that push model capabilities forward.

Life at Labelbox

• Location: Join our dedicated tech hubs in San Francisco or Wrocław Poland
• Work Style: Hybrid model with 2 days per week in office combining collaboration and flexibility
• Environment: Fast-paced and high-intensity perfect for ambitious individuals who thrive on ownership and quick decision-making
• Growth: Career advancement opportunities directly tied to your impact
• Vision: Be part of building the foundation for humanitys most transformative technology

Our Vision

We believe data will remain crucial in achieving artificial general intelligence. As AI models become more sophisticated the need for high-quality specialized training data will only grow. Join us in developing new products and services that enable the next generation of AI breakthroughs.

Labelbox is backed by leading investors including SoftBank Andreessen Horowitz B Capital Gradient Ventures Databricks Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and leading AI labs.

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