Forward Deployed Engineer, Enterprise Document AI (SF)

Lavendo•San Francisco, CA

2d•$220,000 - $320,000•Onsite

About The Position

This role is with one of Lavendo's clients, a Series B enterprise AI startup building infrastructure that turns complex documents into structured, AI-ready data. Their API-based platform processes PDFs, images, spreadsheets, and other unstructured files, helping organizations build production AI applications and automate document-intensive workflows. The company supports AI-native startups and large enterprises with demanding accuracy and deployment requirements. The team is founder-led and engineering-first, with engineers working directly with customers and using what they learn to improve the product. The mission is to make complex document data reliable enough to build on, by unlocking information inside unstructured files while preserving the detail and structure that downstream applications depend on. The goal is to deliver accurate, usable data that holds up in production, not simply extract text that looks convincing in a demo.

Requirements

3+ years of full-time production engineering experience shipping software for enterprise customers
Experience at a recognizable, high-growth startup with strong engineering standards
Independent ownership of building, deploying, and supporting production applications or AI pipelines
Strong production-level Python and engineering fundamentals
Solid understanding of AI, LLMs, and machine learning concepts
Use of Claude, Codex, or similar coding tools beyond autocomplete, guided by sound technical judgment
Enterprise deployment experience spanning integrations, troubleshooting, and customer-specific constraints
Clear communication and confidence leading technical customer conversations
A quantitative approach to debugging, experimentation, and performance measurement
Willingness to work on-site in San Francisco five days per week

Nice To Haves

Founding role within the developing FDE function
Work directly with founders, product, and engineering to shape the platform and establish how future deployments are delivered
Combine substantial engineering work with customer relationships and deployment responsibility
Backend-leaning engineers and customer-facing FDEs are welcome, but independent coding and production deployment ownership are essential

Responsibilities

Turn customer requirements into working applications and integrations
Partner with AEs and SEs on evaluations, custom demos, and competitive benchmarking
Build custom applications, agents, evaluation tools, and product enhancements
Own technical success for 1-3 enterprise accounts, meeting weekly or biweekly
Resolve deployment and integration issues to deepen adoption
Build diagnostics, dashboards, and evaluation harnesses to measure performance and catch regressions
Explain technical decisions and trade-offs to customer stakeholders
Identify new use cases and expand deployments across teams
Translate customer insights into product improvements and engineering priorities