Forward Deployed Engineer

Title of Role: Forward Deployed Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA (On-site, 5 days/week + ~10% travel)
Company Stage of Funding: Seed (~$8M raised)
Office Type: On-site
Salary: $175,000 – $250,000 + Competitive Equity
Visa: Visa sponsorship available

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Company Description

Our client is an early-stage applied AI startup building autonomous operational agents that automate complex enterprise workflows across industries such as healthcare, logistics, finance, and payroll.

The company is replacing repetitive manual work traditionally handled by outsourced teams and legacy operational systems through AI agents capable of browser automation, document processing, and API-driven workflow execution.

Founded by experienced operators with deep expertise scaling operational systems at hypergrowth technology companies, the company is already demonstrating strong commercial traction with enterprise customers significantly expanding contract value within months of initial deployment.

With a small, highly technical founding team, this is an opportunity to join at an inflection point and help define how AI agents are deployed, scaled, and commercialized across enterprise customers.

This role sits at the intersection of engineering, customer deployment, solution architecture, and revenue expansion.

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What You Will Do

Own enterprise deployments from first customer interaction through production launch

Run technical discovery sessions with customer stakeholders to understand operational workflows

Translate ambiguous business processes into deployable AI agent solutions

Configure and deploy agents against live customer systems and datasets

Build lightweight integrations and implementation-layer tooling

Own pilot execution timelines, success criteria, and deployment milestones

Partner with customers through procurement, technical validation, and production rollout

Drive pricing conversations and help move technical evaluations into signed contracts

Surface structured product feedback from live deployments

Build reusable deployment frameworks and implementation playbooks

Collaborate directly with founders on product iteration and customer expansion strategy

Travel occasionally to customer sites for implementation and workflow discovery

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Ideal Candidate Background

2–5 years of experience in:

• Forward Deployed Engineering
• Solutions Engineering
• Technical Deployment / Implementation
• Technical Customer Success
• Solution Architecture

Strong engineering fundamentals with hands-on coding experience

Experience owning technical customer relationships

Comfortable operating across technical implementation and customer-facing execution

Strong startup instincts and ability to move quickly in ambiguous environments

Able to independently drive projects from problem discovery to deployment

Strong written and verbal communication

Highly product-minded and customer empathetic

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Preferred

Experience deploying AI systems or workflow automation products

Experience with applied AI, browser agents, workflow orchestration, or agentic systems

Python fluency

TypeScript familiarity

Pre-sales or pilot ownership experience

Experience at early-stage startups

Founder / ex-founder experience

Experience in enterprise software deployments

Comfortable using AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.)

Experience in operationally complex industries such as healthcare, logistics, payroll, or fintech

Strong evidence of intensity / excellence (startup founding, high-achievement extracurriculars, exceptional side projects)

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Compensation and Benefits

Base salary: $175,000 – $250,000

Equity: Competitive founding-stage equity

Visa sponsorship available

Direct collaboration with founders

High ownership and customer-facing responsibility from day one

Meaningful influence on product direction

Strong path toward future leadership across deployment, product, or engineering

Opportunity to build rare customer-commercial-technical hybrid expertise

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Why Join

This is a rare opportunity to join an applied AI company at the earliest stages of enterprise scale-up.

You’ll sit at the highest-leverage point in the business — where technical execution directly drives customer success, product evolution, and revenue growth.

This role offers unusually deep exposure to:

• Enterprise customer buying dynamics
• AI deployment challenges
• Product iteration loops
• Commercial execution

For engineers who want to become elite forward deployed operators, future founders, or technical product leaders, this role offers exceptional acceleration.

You’ll work directly with customers, deploy real production systems quickly, and help shape how AI automation is delivered across major enterprise workflows.