Forward Deployed Engineer

Formant•New York, IL

88d

About The Position

We're hiring our first Forward Deployed Engineer: a customer champion who brings AI capabilities into the messy, complex reality of production robotics environments. This isn't a role for someone who wants to perfect algorithms in isolation. You'll spend your time embedded with customers, understanding their operations, identifying where AI can transform their business, and building solutions that deliver measurable impact. You'll be the bridge between our customers' operational challenges and our platform's AI capabilities. When a logistics company needs to predict maintenance issues across 200 robots, or an agriculture customer wants to optimize route planning with LLMs, you're the person who turns that business problem into a deployed solution. You'll report to our Director, Customer Success Engineering and work closely with product engineering and go-to-market teams to ensure every customer deployment succeeds and that lessons learned improve our platform for everyone.

Requirements

3+ years in customer-facing engineering roles deploying technical solutions in production environments (Solutions Engineering, Implementation Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering, Technical Account Management, etc.)
Proven enterprise customer success: Track record of managing customer engagements at companies with $500k+ ARR, including on-site deployments
Production deployment expertise: You've shipped real solutions that real users depend on and supported them when things break
Programming proficiency: Comfortable writing production-quality code in Python or TypeScript
AI/LLM experience: Hands-on experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, and RAG/vector databases in production contexts
Ambiguity navigator: Demonstrated ability to take vague customer needs and turn them into concrete technical solutions

Nice To Haves

Technical versatility with React, SQL, and ROS
Experience integrating external APIs to build end-to-end customer solutions
Familiarity with robotics platforms (Boston Dynamics Spot, AMRs, industrial robots, SCADA systems)
Knowledge of Model Context Protocol or similar AI frameworks
Background at an AI-first startup or in forward deployed engineering roles

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end AI implementations for enterprise customers ($500k+ ARR), from initial discovery through production deployment and beyond
Embed on-site with customers to deeply understand their robotics operations, workflow constraints, and business objectives
Transform ambiguous customer requirements (like "we need our robots to work better") into concrete, deployed AI solutions that drive measurable ROI
Build trust as the technical expert customers rely on during critical deployments and production issues
Design and implement LLM-powered workflows, RAG pipelines, and AI solutions tailored to each customer's specific robotic use cases
Rapidly prototype solutions that balance cutting-edge AI capabilities with production reliability requirements
Navigate the real-world constraints of robotics deployments: latency, connectivity, safety, and integration with existing systems
Create reusable frameworks and tools that accelerate future customer deployments
Serve as the voice of the customer to product engineering, translating field insights into platform improvements and new AI capabilities
Collaborate with go-to-market teams to demonstrate technical value in customer engagements and support expansion opportunities
Enable customer teams through training, documentation, and knowledge transfer, ensuring they can maintain and evolve AI solutions independently
Switch seamlessly between diving deep into technical architecture with customer engineers and presenting business value to C-suite executives