Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

JeffreyM Consulting•San Francisco, CA

3h•$180,000 - $250,000•Onsite

About The Position

Our client is an early-stage, venture-backed AI startup developing technology to automate complex workflows in semiconductor design and verification. Its platform uses AI agents to streamline repetitive engineering tasks, capture institutional knowledge, and help chip design teams identify issues earlier and work more efficiently. The company is a small, highly technical team serving leading semiconductor companies, and works in person in San Francisco. The Senior Forward Deployed Engineer will own customer deployments at large chip companies, debugging the company's AI agent platform in strict on-premises, air-gapped customer environments and helping shape the product roadmap through field learnings. This is not a role focused on throwaway custom code; the engineer will debug the core product and contribute to its development. The position requires working onsite in San Francisco five days per week, with occasional travel to customers in the South Bay, Texas, and possibly Asia. No chip-design background is required. H-1B transfers only for visa sponsorship. Compensation is $180,000–$250,000 annually, plus competitive equity.

Requirements

Proven track record owning multiple technical customer engagements or deployments end to end at the same time, such as as a Forward Deployed Engineer, founding engineer, or past founder.
Deep Linux/Unix and systems expertise, including hands-on container setup with Podman or Docker, networking, ports, NFS, symlinks, and permissions.
Strong Python skills and the ability to quickly internalize and debug a large codebase.
Bachelor’s degree in CS, EE, ECE, ME, or a related engineering field from a top 40 engineering school.
2–6 years of experience as a software engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, or CAD/Infrastructure Engineer at a seed to Series E startup or top technology company.
Ability to work onsite in San Francisco five days per week.

Nice To Haves

Experience at a top AI, defense, or hardware company, such as Palantir, Databricks, Scale AI, OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, or Anduril.
Past experience as a startup founder or founding engineer, or experience in AI/ML.

Responsibilities

Own one or two large enterprise chip customer engagements end to end, from evaluation through deployment and expansion, with engagements lasting three to six or more months.
Debug the platform in real time on customer screens, including its Python backend, React frontend, and AI agents, across Linux, containers, networking, and filesystems.
Drive customer adoption by running trainings, tracking and documenting issues, and following through when fixes ship.
Contribute to the core product when there is no customer fire.
Feed field learnings back into the product roadmap.
Travel occasionally to customers in the South Bay, Texas, and possibly Asia.