Forward Deployed Engineer, Agent Studio
Role Description
About the Role
This is a high-ownership, customer-facing engineering role at a fast-growing AI-native sales SaaS company. You'll own the end-to-end deployment of AI agents directly with design partner customers, driving measurable revenue outcomes. It's a rare seat that combines deep technical work, direct customer embedding, and product influence — with no established playbook and high expectations for impact.
What You'll Do
- Deploy and rapidly iterate on AI agents covering account strategy, prospecting, outbound emails, LinkedIn outreach, call prep, and follow-ups — targeting step-change improvements in customer pipeline metrics within trial periods.
- Embed deeply with customers through shared channels, calls, and tight feedback loops, translating field observations into agent improvements within days.
- Build agents that fully automate nuanced SDR workflows, with clear evals, trust calibration, and the ability to improve over time.
- Own deployment outcomes end-to-end with GM-level accountability for customer revenue numbers.
- Serve as the bridge between sales teams, engineering, and leadership — communicating agent capabilities, surfacing customer needs, and reporting deployment status fluently across all three audiences in a single day.
What We're Looking For
- 5+ years of engineering experience, ideally as a technical founder, founding engineer, or forward-deployed engineer at a high-bar company.
- 3+ years of hands-on experience building and shipping production AI agents or agentic workflows to external users as an individual contributor.
- Demonstrated proficiency in prompt engineering, tool use, evals, and trust calibration for production AI systems.
- Background in AI engineering at a recognized growth-stage startup or large tech company.
- Proficiency in Node.js, TypeScript, and Python.
- Direct experience troubleshooting with enterprise customers across complex, ambiguous tech stacks.
- A track record of shipping production code — not consulting-only or configuration-focused roles.
- Comfortable operating with ambiguity and driving outcomes without heavy process or manager direction.
- Strong CS fundamentals — technical degree or equivalent demonstrated foundation.
- Nice to have: 0-to-1 product ownership as a technical founder or early engineering hire; familiarity with GTM, sales workflows, or revenue-generating systems.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary range: $215,000 – $300,000 USD annually, plus equity. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Location
Hybrid — San Francisco, CA. The team is in-office 3+ days per week; on-site presence in San Francisco is required.
About Forward Deployed Engineering
Forward Deployed Engineers are embedded directly with customers to build custom solutions, integrate products into existing infrastructure, and bridge the gap between product engineering and customer success. The role combines deep technical skills with the ability to operate in client environments and translate business requirements into working software.
Originally pioneered by Palantir, the FDE model has spread across AI, enterprise SaaS, and cloud infrastructure companies. FDEs write production code, architect integrations, train customer teams, and feed product insights back to the core engineering organization. At companies like OpenAI, Salesforce, and Databricks, FDE teams are treated as elite engineering units that can ship custom solutions in days rather than quarters.
Typical FDE stack: Python, TypeScript, SQL, REST/GraphQL APIs, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure), and increasingly LLM APIs and AI orchestration frameworks. Strong communication and the ability to context-switch between technical and business conversations are as important as coding ability.
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