Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

**HIRING: Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) | San Francisco**

This is **not a traditional software engineering role**.

You’ll sit directly at the intersection of:

**Agentic AI**
**Software Engineering**
**Enterprise Customers**
**Product & Deployment**

You’ll own client deployments from **scoping development integration go-live**, working directly with senior stakeholders and technical teams.

### ROLE DETAILS

* **Position:** Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
* **Type:** Full-time
* **Location:** **San Francisco, CA**
* **Work Policy:** **On-site, Monday–Friday in SF Mission office**
* **Openings:** **8–10**
* **Compensation:** **$165K–$250K + competitive equity**
* **Visa:** **OPT & H-1B transfers supported (**Must currently reside in the USA)
* **Interview:** **4 steps**
* **Primary Tech:** **Python**

### WHAT MAKES THIS ROLE DIFFERENT?

You won't simply build features from a product specification.

You’ll work directly with customers to understand their problems, build solutions **on the fly**, deploy AI systems into production, and remain accountable for the outcome.

You’ll be the engineer who can:

**Understand the customer Design the solution Write the code Deploy AI Improve the outcome**

### WHAT YOU'LL DO

Deploy **multimodal, agentic AI systems** into production

Own customer deployments end-to-end, from scoping through go-live

Serve as the primary technical contact for senior client stakeholders

Build trusted relationships with customers and understand their business challenges

Design and evolve AI agents for optimal claims outcomes

Work with **prompt engineering, model integration, and AI-assisted coding tools**

Work with Applied AI on a daily basis

Scope and develop features that help customers scale

Integrate the platform into customer environments through **APIs and systems**

Work directly with customer engineering teams

Partner with the core platform team to improve delivery

Capture deployment learnings and create internal best practices/playbooks

### MUST-HAVE QUALIFICATIONS

**Experience**

**2–5 years** of experience in a technical role using Python

Experience building and shipping **production code**

Experience at a **VC-backed startup, founding/founder environment, or fast-paced public technology company**

Examples include companies such as Databricks, Stripe, or Datadog.

**Technical**

Strong software engineering fundamentals

Data structures & algorithms

System design

Strong **Python**

Familiarity with **LLMs, prompt engineering, and agentic AI**

**Customer & Communication**

Strong client-facing or product-oriented experience

Excellent communication skills

Ability to explain technical concepts and thought processes clearly

Comfortable working directly with senior customer stakeholders

**Education**

**STEM degree**

### ? NICE TO HAVE

? Graduate of a **top-20 university for your program**

? Early-stage startup experience

? VC-backed startup experience

? Founder / founding engineer experience

? Previous customer-facing engineering experience

### STRONG CANDIDATE SIGNAL

The strongest candidates can combine **technical depth + customer communication + execution**.

You should be comfortable taking an ambiguous customer problem and turning it into a **working production solution**.

### IMPORTANT

This position requires working **5 days per week in the San Francisco Mission office**.

This is a highly hands-on role. Candidates should be comfortable writing code, working directly with customers, and operating in a fast-paced environment.

The role may not be a fit for candidates whose background is:

? Primarily non-client-facing
? Primarily consulting/contracting
? Purely business/non-technical
? Limited production coding experience
? Limited ability to communicate technical decisions clearly

### INTERESTED?

If you have **2–5 years of Python/software engineering experience**, strong production coding skills, and enjoy working directly with customers on AI solutions, I’d love to hear from you.

Please highlight any experience with **Python, LLMs/agentic AI, customer-facing engineering, production deployments, and startup environments.**