Forward Deployed Engineer

Our client is a Series B document AI company turning the messiest enterprise data, including PDFs, spreadsheets, financial statements, and medical records, into LLM-ready inputs with exceptional accuracy. Founded in 2023, they have raised $108M from tier-one investors including a16z, Benchmark, and First Round Capital, and grew revenue 8x year over year. They now process tens of millions of pages every month for teams ranging from category-defining AI companies to Fortune 10 enterprises, backed by SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance and flexible deployment from the cloud to fully air-gapped environments. The team is still lean, so this role carries real surface area from day one.The roleThis is the founding Forward Deployed Engineer hire, sitting at the intersection of deep engineering and customer impact. You will own the technical deployment of the platform with some of the world's most sophisticated enterprise customers and help shape what this function looks like from the ground up.What you'll doPartner with account executives and sales engineers during pre-sales to run rigorous evals, build custom demo applications, and win competitive bake-offs against rival document AI solutions.Own post-sales technical success for 1 to 3 enterprise accounts, meeting regularly with customers to unblock issues, deepen adoption, and unlock expansion into new teams and use cases.Build whatever drives customer value: eval harnesses, prototype apps, diagnostic dashboards, and custom integrations on top of the company's APIs.Embed directly with enterprise engineering teams to deploy new applications for customers who lack their own developer resources.Feed insights from the field back to product and engineering to influence core product direction.What we're looking for3 to 6 years in full-stack (backend-leaning) or product engineering, with a background as a software engineer or forward deployed engineer.Strong Python proficiency: you write and ship production-quality code independently, not just configure tools.Genuine AI and LLM fluency, comfortable with core ML concepts and using AI coding tools like Claude or Codex in your daily work.Experience at a recognizable, high-growth startup shipping production software for enterprise customers.Able to hold your own in a technical discussion on a customer call.A track record of staying put: multiple sub-one-year stints in a short window are a dealbreaker.Bonus pointsEqually credible as a deep backend engineer and a polished, customer-facing communicator.Hands-on experience designing and running evals for LLM-powered systems.Degree from a top-tier engineering program (for example, Berkeley or MIT).Compensation and benefitsBase: $150K to $300KEquity: Extremely competitiveVisa sponsorship availablePerks: unlimited PTO, free daily lunch, reimbursed transportation, generous medical, dental, and vision coverage, a $150 per month wellness budget, and flexible parental leaveLocation and work modelSan Francisco, CAOn-site, 5 days per week