Where it comes from
- Reported at OpenAISource 1OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 2OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 3OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on Reddit More OpenAI questions The OpenAI interview guide
How to answer
It can come up in the recruiter call. One candidate reported, in February 2025, that their OpenAI recruiter interview asked whether they had customer-facing experience, along with their knowledge of OpenAI’s APIs and their language preferences. Source 1OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 2OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on RedditSource 3OpenAI Forward Deployed Software Engineer (comment by u/aksss123)PublisherReddit r/leetcodeSource typecandidate report on Reddit Answer as if the recruiter is filling in one line on a screening form: give them a line they can write down, then let the follow-ups pull out the rest.
Start with a headline. Who the customer was, how long you worked with them and what you owned, in two sentences: “I’m the named technical contact for a regional bus operator’s maintenance team, and have been since they signed. I run our call with them every other week, own their integration and take their escalations.” A category (“enterprise clients”), a count of calls, or “our users are our customers” names no person and nothing owned, and the first follow-up finds the gap.
Then say which kind of customer it was. Each kind has its own proof:
- A paying external customer. Give the person’s role, describe the organization by industry and size, and name it only if the relationship is public. Say what was at stake for your company, such as a renewal, and whether you answered for it.
- An internal team. Name the team and what they could have done instead of using what you built. That they could say no is what makes them a customer.
- Students, or users you supported directly. Name one person who was stuck and what you changed for them. Leo Mehr wrote on Ramp’s engineering blog, in August 2025, that customer-facing experience helps but is not necessary for Ramp candidates, and that people who were instructors or teaching assistants and enjoyed it have shown the ability and interest to do this work well. Source 4Forward Deployed Engineering (Leo Mehr, Director, Engineering)PublisherRamp Builders (engineering blog)Source typecompany blog
- None yet. Say so, then give the closest thing: the incident where you worked directly with the affected team, or the partner whose engineers you integrated with. Don’t stretch a sales demo you sat in on into ownership; the follow-up about what you owned exposes it.
Keep one or two episodes with friction ready. A request you turned down with a better alternative, or bad news you delivered before they found it. End on their result, measured on their side.
The follow-ups test the relationship, not the story. “What did that customer want that you didn’t give them?” checks that you could push back and keep the relationship. “Who else on your side talked to them?” separates owning from attending: name the account manager or product manager and draw the line between their part and yours. “Would they take your call today?” asks how it ended. If it ended badly, say why and what you would do differently.
In a recruiter screen, the headline, one episode in a sentence and the result take under a minute. Save the full story for the hiring manager.
Turning an episode like this into a story with a measured result is taught in Behavioral mastery for FDEs, in Pro.
Follow-ups
What the interviewer may ask next, once your first answer is on the table.
- What did that customer want that you didn’t give them?
- Who else on your side talked to them, and what did you own that they didn’t?
- Would they take your call today?
Where answers go wrong
- Lists customer calls attended or calls the product’s users “customers”, with no named relationship and nothing owned.
- Stretches a sales demo the candidate sat in on into ownership, which the first follow-up exposes.
Answer this in two minutes
Write the answer you would say out loud. The clock starts with your first word.
Compare with the model answer
Illustrative answer about a fictional project
Written in the first person to show the structure. Tell yours from your own work.
The recruiter version (about 45 seconds).
For the last 18 months my main customer has been the head of maintenance at a regional bus operator, about 600 buses across five depots. I’m their named technical contact at a fleet telematics company: I run a call with her team every other week, own their integration and take their escalations. The episode that defined it: her engineers asked for a raw data export, and I proposed a filtered fault-code feed into their work-order system instead. Over the first two quarters, in-service breakdowns fell from about 40 a month to about 25, and they renewed.
If the hiring manager asks for the full story.
My main customer for the last 18 months has been the head of maintenance at a regional bus operator, about 600 buses across five depots. I work for a company that sells fleet telematics, and I’ve been their named technical contact since the sale: I run a call every other week with her and her two depot engineers, own their integration and am the person they call when data looks wrong. The account came up for renewal after the first year, and I was accountable for the technical side of it.
The episode that defined the relationship came in the first quarter. Her engineers asked for an hourly export of raw engine data so they could build their own fault alerts. I could have shipped it in a week. Instead I asked what they would do with it, and it came down to catching coolant and brake faults before a bus failed in service. Raw data would have meant them building and maintaining alert logic on a few million rows a day. I proposed a fault-code feed filtered to the codes their mechanics act on, pushed into their work-order system. She agreed, on the condition that she could see the raw data for any bus on request, which I added.
Two months later we had a firmware bug that dropped data from three depots for nine days. I found it on a Tuesday, and I called her that afternoon, before any of her people noticed, with what was missing, what it affected and when it would be backfilled. She told me later that call was why she argued for the renewal.
The result on her side: in-service breakdowns fell from about 40 a month to about 25 over the first two quarters, mostly coolant failures caught in the yard. They renewed and added their coach fleet.
If they ask who else on my side talked to her. Our account manager owned pricing and the renewal paperwork; I owned the integration, the fault-code feed and the outage call. When the operator asked for a credit after the outage, that was his call, and I gave him the impact numbers to make it.