Forward Deployed Engineer (Full Time/SFO, CA/Onsite/USA)

Job Title: Forward Deployed EngineerLocation: San Francisco, CA (Onsite)Job Type: Full Time/PermanentVisa: Full Time/USC/GC/Etc..
The company: a YC-backed AI company automating consumer lending. Over $1 billion in payments already processed by its AI voice and SMS agents, ~$6M revenue this year, scaling from 10 to 30 people. This hire is the technical face inside top-10 US mortgage lenders: embed with the customer, turn compliance-heavy workflows into production AI agents, own the account end to end.
Requirements
3+ years professional engineering, sweet spot 3 to 5, with at least 1 year customer-facingStrong Python, Java or TypeScript; comfortable building APIs and backend systemsOwns projects end to end with limited or no guidanceCustomer-centric confidence with both business leaders and engineersCracked with AI tooling: Claude, Cursor or Codex dailyGenuine interest in the mortgage and lending space
Background
The archetype: a strong software engineer who wants to be in the room with customers, not a solutions consultant who dabbles in codePalantir Forward Deployed Engineers are the direct match; applied engineers at AI agent companies fit too
Nice-to-Have
Previous FDE, solutions or sales engineering roleVoice agent, telephony or contact-center infrastructure experienceCompliance-heavy vertical AI (legal, healthcare, financial)
Who Will Thrive Here
An engineer who builds trust through speed, empathy and impactSomeone who scopes ambiguous customer asks and iterates them into stable deploymentsSomeone whose customer learnings shape the core product roadmapFully in office, SF, 5 days a week; relocation possible. H-1B transfer and TN are fine, O-1 works, OPT is a hard no. ResponsibilitiesDevelop quality software and web applicationsAnalyze and maintain existing software applicationsDesign highly scalable, testable codeDiscover and fix programming bugs
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science or related fieldDevelopment experience with programming languagesSQL database or relational database skills