Forward Deployed Engineer
Compensation: $175,000 – $250,000 + Meaningful Founding Equity + Potential Revenue Share
AI Workflow Automation Platform
San Francisco, On-Site
About the Role:
We build AI agents that automate complex, mission-critical workflows end-to-end — using browser automation, LLM API calls, and document processing — so businesses can grow without scaling headcount. Our customers are in healthcare, logistics, finance, payroll, and marketplaces, and they're running thousands of automated processes concurrently. Customers are tripling their contract value within six months. We were founded by three ex-ops leaders from a top-tier consumer tech company and are moving fast.
We're hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer — the highest-leverage role on the team right now. You'll own the full arc from first customer call to signed contract to live in production. That means configuring real agents against real customer data on Monday, then running the pricing conversation on Friday — and knowing how each one shapes the other. Pure engineers stall in procurement. Pure sellers can't get the POC working. You do both.
Every pilot you land becomes a product signal, a reference customer, and a revenue line. The company moves at the speed you move at.
What You'll Do
- Run customer discovery calls with operations leaders — translate vague pain into a crisp, scoped workflow we can automate, and turn that into working demos and pilot plans
- Stand up agents against live customer data and real tools within the first week of a pilot — speed is the product
- Configure prompts, tools, evals, and guardrails for each customer's specific environment; know when to solve it yourself vs. hand off to product engineering
- Own the full deal execution cycle: identify champions and economic buyers, drive urgency, navigate procurement and security reviews, and close
- Write follow-ups that actually get replied to — summaries, next steps, and mutual action plans that are short, specific, and dated
- Be the highest-signal source of customer truth inside the company — ship back structured, ranked feedback that shapes what we build next
- Turn successful pilots into multi-team, multi-workflow expansions — the second deal inside an account is where the real business is
Why This Seat
- $175K–$250K base plus meaningful founding equity and potential revenue share for self-driven expansion — compensation that reflects the impact of the role
- You're working directly with the founders as a founding team member with real ownership of major system components
- The most direct possible path to understanding how enterprises actually buy, how pilots live or die, and how trust actually gets built — exceptional preparation for starting your own company
- Customers are already tripling contract value inside six months — the motion is working, and you'll own scaling it
- Fast-growing company replacing BPO and outsourced contractor spend across mission-critical industries with a product that genuinely works
You'll Thrive Here If You
- Have strong engineering fundamentals — Python fluency preferred — and can configure, debug, and deploy AI agents against real customer systems
- Are comfortable using AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) as a core part of your daily workflow
- Have pre-sales experience: you've scoped requirements, built demos, and delivered POCs that moved deals forward
- Have been a founder or early employee at a startup that gained meaningful traction — you know what it feels like to own something and make it work
- Hold a CS degree or equivalent formal technical background
- Can read the room in enterprise sales — you know the difference between the champion, the economic buyer, and the quietly-skeptical engineer, and you have a plan for each
Nice-to-Haves
- Background at an AI-native company (e.g., Cresta, Sierra, or similar)
- Experience in healthcare, logistics, finance, or payroll workflows — the messier and more manual, the better
- Comfort navigating security reviews, redlines, and enterprise procurement processes
What We Offer
- Highly competitive base ($175K–$250K) + founding equity + potential revenue share
- Founding team role with direct access to CEO and leadership — no layers, fast decisions
- Ownership of the full pre-sales-through-expansion arc with the earliest enterprise customers
- In-person culture in San Francisco at a company moving at full speed
Must-Haves (Logistics)
- Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; on-site full-time
- Stable work history — multiple sub-1-year stints without clear explanation are a disqualifier
- Work authorization in the U.S.
