Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site · Full-timeCompensation: $130,000–$160,000 base + uncapped commission (5–7% of contract value) + 0.2–0.7% equity

About the Company

Our client is a seed-stage company building the AI-adoption layer for large US enterprises — the operating layer that makes enterprise AI reliable, safe, and genuinely usable at scale. The platform sits at the center of how big organizations adopt AI, serving both technical teams and operations leaders who rely on it to understand what their systems know, how their processes run, and how AI behaves in real scenarios. Early customers already include major media and entertainment enterprises. The team is small, engineering-led, and moves fast while holding a high bar for clarity, correctness, and maintainability.

Founded 2025 · 1–10 people (Seed) · Industry: AI Tools

The Role

A Forward Deployed Engineer role weighted more toward commercial work than pure engineering. Most of the job is going deep with enterprise customers — understanding their systems, diagnosing their real pain points, and scoping and selling a technical solution that fits. Technical fluency and working knowledge of AI are essential, but the role is measured on customer outcomes and closed contracts, not volume of code shipped. It sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and operations.

Tech stack: Cross-stack in practice — APIs, data layers, UI surfaces, and customer-facing tooling, with LLM / retrieval / search adjacency.

Requirements

• 2–5 years of experience
• A forward-deployed, solutions-engineering, or otherwise customer-facing technical background
• Genuine technical fluency and working knowledge of modern AI
• Prior startup experience (strongly preferred)
• On-site in San Francisco five days a week; relocation supported

Nice to Haves

• Prior forward-deployed engineering, solutions engineering, or comparable customer-facing technical experience
• A startup chapter with evidence of full end-to-end ownership rather than a narrow assigned scope
• A strong academic record
• Experience at a deployment-heavy AI company
• The rare ability to hold both sides of the role credibly — technical depth with enterprise buyers and commercial instinct in the room

Why Join

• Ground-floor commercial ownership: an early Forward Deployed Engineer working directly with the CEO, owning enterprise relationships from discovery through technical scoping to closed contract
• Major enterprise customers already onboard at seed stage
• Real upside: uncapped commission (5–7% of contract value) on top of base, plus meaningful early-employee equity; meals covered and relocation supported

Details

• Location — San Francisco, CA
• Work policy — On-site, 5 days/week; relocation supported
• Compensation — $130,000–$160,000 base + uncapped commission (5–7% of contract value) + 0.2–0.7% equity
• Visa sponsorship — Available (H-1B, O-1, OPT)
• Employment type — Full-time