Forward Deployed Engineer

About the Company

Our client is a seed-stage public safety technology startup that helps law enforcement search evidence and solve crime. Police and prosecutors across the US use the platform to accelerate investigations into homicides, cold cases, and other major offenses by reducing digital evidence overload. The founding team includes engineers who have previously built national-scale data and defense systems.

The company has roughly 10 active customer deployments today, with a clear path to 25–40 over the next 9 months. The primary customer base is in the Western US, expanding through other Western states and the Southeast.

About the Role

We are hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to own customer outcomes end-to-end. You will scope pilots, ingest messy evidentiary data, configure the product per agency, sit with detectives and prosecutors while they work cases, write scripts and integrations when the product does not quite fit, and feed learnings directly into the roadmap. The seat owns the customer relationship from pilot through first renewal.

A typical engagement is a 2–6 week pilot, followed by an annual contract, followed by in-agency expansion. Time split is roughly 60% customer-facing (calls, onsite, async support), 30% building/scripting/configuring, and 10% internal (product feedback, playbook documentation, hiring loops).

This is not a sales engineering seat. You will live inside customer environments, dig through real evidence data, and write the scripts that make the product work for each agency. The work matters and the customers are not tech-native, so the bar is engineering depth paired with the soft skills to operate in a sheriff's bullpen or DA office.

What You'll Own

• Scope pilots with new customer agencies and translate operational goals into technical deployment plans
• Ingest messy evidentiary data per customer (Cellebrite/GrayKey extractions, CDRs, ALPRs, body cam, jail call audio, PDFs, social media)
• Configure the product per agency and write scripts or integrations when the product does not quite fit
• Sit with detectives, prosecutors, and analysts while they work, and translate workflow gaps into product improvements
• Own customer relationships from pilot through first renewal and expansion
• Feed learnings directly into the product roadmap
• Partner closely with the existing forward deployed engineer, technical customer success, and engineering

Requirements

Must-Have

• Strong engineering: comfortable in Python and/or TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, and shipping small tools without an engineering handoff
• Genuinely customer-facing: at home in a sheriff's bullpen or DA office, not just on Zoom
• Bias to action and comfort with ambiguity
• Owner mindset
• Mission alignment with public safety and US government work
• Willing to go through FBI background checks and CJIS clearance (the company supports the process)
• Based in NYC or the SF Bay Area (exceptional candidates outside these hubs considered, with higher travel expected)

Nice-to-Have

• Prior FDE, solutions engineering, or implementation experience at a company selling into non-tech-native customers
• Exposure to law enforcement, prosecution, intelligence, defense, or e-discovery/forensics
• Familiarity with evidence formats: Cellebrite/GrayKey extractions, CDRs, ALPR, body cam, jail call audio
• Design sensibility (can spot bad UX and articulate why)
• Prior experience at a defense or public safety adjacent startup

Key Details

• Location: New York City, NY or San Francisco Bay Area, CA (in-person, with travel to customer sites)
• Employment: Full-time
• Experience: 4–8 years
• Salary: $140,000 – $220,000 USD per year, plus equity
• Visa Sponsorship: Not available

Benefits & Perks

• Meaningful founding-hire-level equity (4-year vest, 1-year cliff)
• Medical and dental
• 401(k)

Interview Process

1. Intro call
2. Technical and scenario interview (60 min)
3. Take-home or live exercise
4. Customer simulation (60 min)
5. Onsite in NYC or SF
6. Reference calls
7. Offer