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RNB Consultancy

AI Product Forward Deployed Engineer – On-Device AI

$150K - $200K San Francisco, CA, US Mid Posted October 05, 2026

Role Description

Would you rather see your work in a keynote demo than in an internal dashboard?

A San Francisco AI lab is building trustworthy, consumer-grade agents that run privately on the device. With their small action models and execution layer, an agent can read the screen, grasp the context and operate any app, no APIs or custom integrations needed. They've topped the industry's standard mobile-agent benchmark for a year, are backed by top-tier funds, and partner with leading chip and device makers. Two lanes: their own iOS and Android apps, and partnerships with device makers.

What you'll own

  • Getting a partner's idea from a first call all the way into a feature on a flagship phone
  • Technical leadership on location with some of the largest device makers in the world: their headquarters, R&D labs and factories
  • The build once you're back home: prompts, evals, mobile code and the doc that says it's ready to launch
  • Complete product experiences for agents running on device

What you bring

  • Roughly 3–7 years of experience
  • LLM features you've shipped that survived real hardware, real users and a fixed launch date
  • You translate a fuzzy partner request into prompt, model and UX choices, and keep moving
  • You enjoy working directly with clients. This is a must.
  • Consumer products you've taken from first version to real traction, at startup speed
  • On-device or mobile experience, or a track record of picking things up fast
  • High agency and real urgency

Bonus points

  • Field, solutions or forward deployed work with device makers or large enterprise partners
  • Consumer AI that reached real scale
  • Founder or early employee at a startup that scaled fast
  • Work you've shipped that people can see

What's in it for you

  • $150k–$200k base + 0.6–0.8% equity
  • Your work shipping on flagship devices from the world's biggest device makers
  • Visa support, immigration help and relocation

Good to know

  • Full-time, in person in San Francisco, 9-9-6
  • Regular international travel to partners

Process: intro founder chat technical round onsite work trial* offer

Does this sound like you? Apply now. If you're a match, we'll be in touch within 3 working days.

RnB Consultancy | Netherlands | 3604 AB Maarssen | KvK 71489703

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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