Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

Drytis is hiring a high-agency Forward Deployed Engineer to work at the edge of AI, product, operations, and real customer problems. This is a part-time role built for exceptional students and recent graduates who want to learn fast, take real ownership, and help deploy AI-driven systems in live business environments.

About Drytis

Drytis is building an AI-powered engineering platform designed to help companies move from idea to working software faster. The company operates in the last mile between raw customer need and shipped execution, combining AI tooling, product judgment, and hands-on engineering support to solve practical business problems. This is not a traditional internship and not a passive support role. The FDE sits close to real deployments, real operators, and real users — helping translate ambiguity into workflows, systems, product decisions, and working solutions.

The Role

Forward Deployed Engineers at Drytis work directly with clients and internal teams to understand business problems, shape implementation plans, and help deploy AI-enabled workflows in the real world. The role blends technical problem-solving, product thinking, systems judgment, client communication, and operational execution into one high-learning position. A typical engagement may involve joining a live customer call, identifying the real bottleneck behind a request, converting that into a scoped plan or PRD, coordinating with engineering, improving a workflow, testing automations, and helping ensure the final system actually works in practice. The best candidates are fast learners who are energized by ambiguity, comfortable switching between strategy and execution, and excited to work closely with a startup team moving at high speed.

What You’ll Do

• Join customer and internal calls to understand workflows, pain points, and desired outcomes.
• Turn messy, real-world requirements into clear plans, structured project scopes, and detailed product or implementation documents.
• Help design and deploy AI-assisted workflows, internal tools, and operational systems.
• Work across product, operations, and engineering to move projects from concept to execution.
• Improve processes, interfaces, and user flows so solutions are intuitive and usable.
• Support integrations with APIs, third-party platforms, messaging systems, and cloud-based tools.​
• Troubleshoot issues quickly, unblock deployment problems, and help teams get to reliable outcomes faster.​
• Surface recurring customer pain points and translate them into product feedback, playbooks, and better internal systems.​

What This Role Is Great For

This role is designed for people who want steep responsibility early. It is especially compelling for students or recent graduates interested in AI, software, product, startups, operations, consulting-style problem solving, or building leverage through automation.

You will get unusually high exposure to how modern AI systems are scoped, implemented, and improved inside real businesses. You will also develop strong instincts in communication, systems thinking, customer discovery, structured execution, and founder-style ownership.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Currently studying or recently graduated in computer science, engineering, AI, information systems, operations, economics, or a similarly rigorous field.
• Strong technical curiosity; you may be a builder, hacker, tinkerer, operator, or someone who learns new tools very quickly.
• Comfortable using Python, JavaScript, SQL, spreadsheets, no-code tools, APIs, or AI coding tools — depth in every area is not required, but speed of learning is.
• Excited by startups, fast feedback loops, and the chance to work on meaningful problems with real consequences.
• Clear communicator who can speak with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Highly organized, self-directed, and able to own work without waiting for constant instructions.
• Strong judgment, attention to detail, and willingness to do the unglamorous work required to make systems actually function.

Strong Signals

• You have built side projects, prototypes, automations, research tools, internal tools, or startup projects.
• You have worked with LLMs, prompt engineering, AI agents, workflow automation, or rapid product prototyping.
• You have experience in customer-facing work, consulting, technical support, operations, product roles, or startup environments.
• You naturally simplify complexity and like turning ambiguity into structure.
• You care about speed, but not at the expense of clarity or quality.

How We Think About the FDE Role

At Drytis, the Forward Deployed Engineer is not just a technical implementer. The role is closer to a hybrid of product-minded engineer, deployment lead, workflow designer, and operator — someone who can understand what a client actually needs, map that into a feasible solution, and help drive execution across teams.​

That means success in this role comes from a combination of technical sharpness, communication, business instinct, and personal ownership. Strong candidates do not wait to be managed through every detail; they create clarity, ask smart questions, and move work forward.

Why Top Students Join

• Real ownership from day one.
• Direct exposure to customers, product decisions, and live deployments.
• Deep hands-on experience with AI tools, automation, and startup execution.
• A chance to work closely with a fast-moving, founder-led team.
• Flexible remote structure that works well alongside school or immediately after graduation.
• Meaningful learning density in a role that sits at the intersection of engineering, operations, and product.

Role Details

• Type: Part-time contract role.
• Location: Remote.
• Target candidates: High-performing students and recent graduates from top US universities.
• Focus markets: Blacksburg, Atlanta, State College, Durham, Chapel Hill, Columbia, Austin, Evanston, and College Station.
• Compensation: Competitive and performance-based; structured to reward capability, ownership, and impact.

Why This Role Is Different

Most “student-friendly” roles put you on the sidelines; this one drops you directly into the core of how AI products get deployed into real businesses. You are not just writing code or taking notes on calls — you are helping scope problems, shape solutions, and see your work ship into production environments.

Instead of being confined to a narrow lane, you sit at the intersection of engineering, product, and operations. You will jump between live customer conversations, workflow design, technical implementation details, and rapid iteration on what actually works in practice. The learning curve is steep, but so is the impact you can have.

This is a founder-led, high-trust environment: strong performers get real ownership quickly, direct exposure to decision-making, and honest feedback, not layers of hierarchy or slow processes. The role is remote and part-time by design, so top students can plug into serious work without waiting for “after graduation” to start building meaningful experience in AI and startups.

Pay: $28.25 per hour

Work Location: Remote