Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

About Mudita StudiosMudita Studios is an advanced innovation factory. We invent, develop, launch, and scale tech-forward companies from the ground up, partnering with founders, venture firms, and established enterprises to bring market-defining ideas to life. From early sparks to escape velocity, we run the full venture-building process: ideate, validate, build, launch, scale.The CompanyThis role sits inside our newest operating company: an AI services firm that installs AI agents and workflow automations for growth-stage B2B SaaS companies and mid-market traditional businesses. Every engagement starts with a free Diagnose, a scored roadmap showing a customer where AI actually pays off, in hours per week and dollars per year. From there we install proven plays from our library or scope and build custom ones, flat fee and fixed scope, then keep every system at the frontier on a monthly Run subscription. The premise is simple. Consultants leave you a PowerPoint. We leave you a workforce.The RoleWe're hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to be the technical spine of this company. You own discovery, custom builds, and standard installs: you scope it, you architect it, you deliver it. Before a deal closes you're the technical truth in the room. After it closes you're the one who makes the software real inside the customer's business.This is field work, not a backend ticket queue. One week you're validating that a recommended play is actually buildable against a customer's systems before anyone signs. The next you're leading discovery with their ops team, locking scope and architecture, and feeding the cost inputs that price the build. Then you ship it: configure, integrate, test, deploy, and stand behind it at go-live.You won't do it alone. An established platform engineering pod builds our delivery platform to spec and flexes into your builds when loaded, always under your QA. Your job is to make sure everything that ships meets the bar, and that the best of what you build compounds: standards set, plays graduated into the library, every customer kept at the frontier. You'd be one of the first hires in the company.Mandatory Requirements:Shipped into production, repeatedly. You've shipped at least 5 production products you owned end-to-end (scoped, designed, built, shipped, supported), built primarily through AI-augmented workflows.Live product link, today. You must include at least one link to a live product you built, accessible to us right now. Resumes without a live link will not be reviewed.AI-augmented building is your default. You build with modern AI tooling as your everyday workflow, across models and tools, not as an experiment, side project, or weekend curiosity.Delivery owner, not just builder. You've scoped work for real external customers, project-managed the build, shipped it, and answered for it after go-live.What You Will DoHold the technical truth pre-sale: vet every Diagnose output, secure customer data access, field technical objections in the Readout (the session where we present the roadmap and recommend a path), and validate that the chosen path is buildable before anyone signsOwn library installs end to end: configure plays for each customer's workflow, validate integrations against their real systems, then test and deployLead discovery on custom work: lock scope and architecture with the customer, and feed the cost inputs that price every buildOwn custom builds through acceptance: project-manage the architecture, QA, and release yourselfIntegrate with customer systems: third-party APIs and data sources with secure auth and resilient syncFinalize every deployment at go-live, then monitor and fix what the first weeks surfaceKeep every customer at the frontier: own cost-optimization methods and model and tooling upgrades across the entire book, including the platform itselfGuard the compounding loop: set reusable play standards, QA the engineering pod's output, and graduate the best custom builds into the libraryFeed field signal back into the engine that runs every Diagnose: outputs, feedback, real-world behaviorWhat You BringA forward-deployed mindset. You'd rather be inside the customer's operation with the owner than heads-down behind a spec someone else wrotePre-sale presence. You can stand in front of a skeptical owner or executive, answer the hard technical question straight, and keep the deal honestA builder and PM in one seat. You own the why, the what, and the how, and ship the result yourselfHigh agency in ambiguity. You get dropped into an unfamiliar business and are useful inside a weekStrong product taste. You spot the clunky workflow, the unnecessary step, the missing feedback loop, and you care enough to fix themFluency across the modern AI stack: coding agents like Claude Code and Cursor, model APIs across Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, OpenRouter, agent frameworks, evals, and the patterns that turn LLMs into production systems5+ years of full-stack or product engineering, ideally in 0-to-1, consulting, or forward-deployed environmentsHands-on experience building production systems with LLMs, vector databases, and retrieval architecturesComfort directing and QA-ing other engineers' output without writing every line yourselfBonus PointsYou've shipped products that other people now use and pay forYou've delivered software or automation into growth-stage SaaS companies or traditional operating businesses: logistics, manufacturing, professional services, field servicesSolutions engineering or technical pre-sales experienceHands-on experience with LangChain, MCP, Pinecone, PostgreSQL, or SupabaseBackground in venture studios, accelerators, or early-stage startupsExperience deploying applications on Vercel, AWS, GCP, or AzureHow We WorkRemote-first, async-friendly, with deliberate moments to gather and build togetherTravel to customers when the work calls for it: discovery, go-lives, and the rooms where decisions get madeA small senior team on top, a studio underneath: shared infrastructure, engineering, and a GTM engine feeding warm demandNo junior pyramid. No bench. We hire senior, then get out of the wayBias toward shipping, learning fast, and elevating the workHow to ApplySend a note, your resume, and at least one link to a live product you built and own. Tell us what you've built, how you built it, and what you'd build first here. Applications without a live product link will not be reviewed.