Forward Deployed Engineering Manager

Shape the Future of AI At Labelbox, we're building the critical infrastructure that powers breakthrough AI models at leading research labs and enterprises. Since 2018, we've 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 We're the only company offering three integrated solutions for frontier AI development: Enterprise Platform & Tools : Advanced annotation tools, workflow automation, and quality control systems that enable teams to produce high-quality training data at scale Frontier Data Labeling Service : Specialized data labeling through Alignerr, leveraging subject matter experts for next-generation AI models 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. You'll 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. You'll be surrounded by curious minds solving complex problems at the frontier of AI. Clear Ownership : You'll know exactly what you're responsible for and have the autonomy to execute. We empower people to drive results through clear ownership and metrics. The role We’re hiring a Forward Deployed Engineering Manager to lead the design, development, and delivery of reinforcement learning environments for agentic AI systems. You’ll manage a team responsible for building sandboxed, reproducible environments—terminal-based workflows, browser automation, and computer-use simulations—that power both model training and human-in-the-loop evaluation. This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll set technical direction, guide execution, and stay close to architecture and critical systems. What You’ll 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 details —reviewing architecture, unblocking complex issues, and guiding design decisions What We’re 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, you’ll lead the team building the environments that define how models learn—working 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 o