Forward Deployed Engineer

Rheaction • San Francisco, CA

51d • Hybrid

About The Position

Our client is looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to work at the intersection of engineering, product, and customers. You'll take complex customer problems, understand what actually needs to be built, and turn those requirements into working software—often moving from an ambiguous problem to a production deployment in a matter of days or weeks. This isn't a traditional implementation or solutions engineering role. You'll write production code, build integrations and new product capabilities, and work directly with customers to make the technology successful in real-world environments. You'll also act as a critical feedback loop between customers and the core engineering team, helping shape the product based on what you learn in the field. This role is ideal for an engineer who is highly technical, resourceful, comfortable talking to customers, and energized by solving problems without a predefined playbook.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and ability to write high-quality production code.
• Proficiency in at least one modern programming language such as Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, Java, or C++ .
• Experience building full-stack applications, backend systems, APIs, infrastructure, data systems, or technically complex products.
• Ability to quickly understand unfamiliar codebases, APIs, systems, and technical environments.
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication skills and comfort working directly with customers.
• Ability to translate loosely defined business or technical problems into working software.
• High degree of ownership and ability to operate independently.
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where priorities can change quickly.
• Willingness to work in person in San Francisco and travel to customer sites when required.

Nice To Haves

• Early-stage startups or highly technical founding teams.
• AI/ML or AI-native products.
• LLM applications, agents, RAG, model APIs, or AI infrastructure.
• Data engineering, ETL pipelines, or complex data integrations.
• Cloud infrastructure such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Docker, Kubernetes, or modern deployment infrastructure.
• Enterprise integrations and APIs.
• Developer tools or infrastructure products.
• Working directly with enterprise or highly technical customers.
• Previous experience as a Forward Deployed Engineer, Founding Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Product Engineer, or Solutions Architect.
• Technical side projects, open-source contributions, hackathons, or other evidence of exceptional builder ability.

Responsibilities

• Work directly with customers to understand their technical environment, workflows, and most important problems.
• Design and build production-quality solutions that solve real customer needs.
• Deploy and integrate the product into complex customer environments.
• Build APIs, integrations, data pipelines, internal tools, and product features as needed.
• Prototype quickly to validate solutions before turning them into robust implementations.
• Debug challenging technical issues across application, infrastructure, data, and integration layers.
• Translate ambiguous customer requirements into concrete technical solutions.
• Collaborate closely with product and core engineering teams to determine what should become part of the broader platform.
• Identify recurring customer problems and turn one-off solutions into scalable product capabilities.
• Own projects end-to-end, from initial customer conversations through implementation and deployment.
• Communicate technical decisions and tradeoffs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Spend time on-site with customers when necessary to accelerate deployments and deeply understand their workflows.

Benefits

• Direct visibility into the impact of what you build.
• Work directly with users and understand their problems firsthand.
• Autonomy to solve customer problems.
• Opportunity to operate across engineering, product, and customer deployment.
• Unusually high-ownership role for engineers who want to build quickly and have an immediate impact.

What This Job Offers

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