Forward Deployed Engineer

I'm working with a YC startup building AI systems that are being deployed directly into real-world enterprise workflows.

They've recently raised their Seed round, signed initial customers, and are now looking for a highly technical engineer who wants to operate closer to the business, product, and customer problems rather than sitting in a siloed engineering function.

This is not a traditional solutions engineer role.

You'll be:

• building AI agents
• writing production code
• designing infrastructure
• deploying systems into customer environments
• working directly with enterprise stakeholders to solve operational problems

The founders are specifically looking for engineers who can both:

1. build at a high technical level
2. communicate clearly with customers

The backgrounds they tend to like:

• early engineers at AI startups
• Palantir / FDSE-style profiles
• strong backend or product engineers from high-calibre engineering companies
• engineers already building with LLMs, agents, or AI-native tooling

What makes the role interesting:

• Very early-stage with real traction already
• Small, high-agency team
• Direct founder exposure
• Real ownership from day one
• AI-native engineering culture
• Fast-moving environment with very little bureaucracy
• Opportunity to shape both product and technical direction early

Tech stack:

• Python
• Node.js / TypeScript
• APIs + integrations
• AI agents / LLM systems
• cloud infrastructure
• production deployments

• you like building quickly
• you enjoy ambiguity
• you want your work close to customers/users
• you prefer ownership over process
• you're excited by agentic AI systems rather than traditional SaaS

Bay Area onsite preferred.