Forward Deployed Engineer

MLabs • San Francisco, CA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Forward Deployed Engineer owns the technical customer journey, translating complex enterprise challenges into high-value, production-grade AI solutions. The role bridges technical strategy and customer execution, partnering with product, sales, and engineering leaders to guide strategic clients from technical discovery through implementation, production rollout, adoption, and scaling.

The engineer leads end-to-end client deployments, contributes technical expertise during pre-sales, and builds and integrates production AI systems after a sale. The role also turns recurring customer insights into product improvements, reusable components, playbooks, tooling, and core product features. Candidates should be comfortable operating autonomously in fast-paced, ambiguous environments and exercising strong technical and commercial judgment.

The position is offered as remote for candidates in the United States or Europe, or hybrid for NYC-based candidates, who work in-office two to three days per week. The stated compensation is $149,000–$185,000 base salary, plus a competitive equity package. Travel of up to 30% annually is listed as a preferred qualification.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of experience as a Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Founding Engineer, or Product Engineer, with significant end-to-end customer ownership.
• Proven ability to take ambiguous client challenges from initial discovery through production deployment and measurable business impact.
• Strong technical and commercial judgment, including evaluating trade-offs among client needs, product features, engineering complexity, cost, and latency.
• Proficiency with Python and/or Rust, React/TypeScript, SQL, APIs, system integrations, authentication protocols, cloud infrastructure, and production observability.
• Hands-on experience building AI-powered applications, including work with model APIs, context management, tool integration, retrieval architectures, model evaluation, and performance optimization.
• For remote arrangements, based in the United States or Europe; NYC-based candidates work in-office two to three days per week.
• High agency and comfort operating autonomously in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.

Nice To Haves

• Ability to travel up to 30% annually for in-person team collaboration and client engagements.
• Exceptional written and verbal English communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical architecture to technical and executive audiences.
• Familiarity with profiling tools, optimization techniques, and low-latency system design.

Responsibilities

• Own strategic client engagements from technical discovery and scoping through architecture design, hands-on implementation, evaluation, production rollout, and long-term adoption.
• Partner with the commercial team during pre-sales to lead technical discovery, design tailored AI solutions, and validate high-value customer opportunities.
• Drive post-sales success by building and integrating production AI systems that take clients from initial concept to full production environments.
• Develop scalable AI applications using LLMs, model APIs, tool calling, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), context management, structured outputs, and agentic workflows.
• Translate recurring customer insights into product enhancements by identifying patterns across deployments and developing reusable components, playbooks, tooling, and core product features.
• Identify operational and technical opportunities, formulate architectural points of view, and execute without requiring rigid direction.

Benefits

• Competitive equity package aligned with performance and growth.
• Opportunity to play a foundational role within a rapidly growing global technology organization.
• Remote options for candidates in the United States or Europe, or hybrid flexibility in New York City.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed