Forward Deployed AI Engineer

Leadervest; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Leadervest seeks exceptional Forward Deployed AI Engineers to build production-grade AI and agentic systems in San Francisco. You’ll own projects end-to-end, work directly with enterprise customers and translate complex requirements into scalable solutions.

You will code across AI-enabled workflows, APIs and backend systems, with strong emphasis on ownership, autonomy, and customer-facing engineering. Remote collaboration and on-site presence may be required.

Qualifications

• 2–6 years of professional software engineering experience.
• 3–5 years including customer-facing engineering exposure.
• Strong Python, Java and/or TypeScript.
• Backend and/or full-stack engineering capabilities.
• Experience building APIs, integrations and production systems.
• Ability to independently own projects from requirements through deployment.
• Strong technical problem-solving ability.
• Comfortable interacting with senior business leaders and engineers.
• High degree of autonomy and ownership.
• Familiarity with AI development tools (Claude, Cursor, Codex or similar).

Responsibilities

• Build and ship production-grade AI, backend and full-stack systems.
• Develop APIs, integrations and AI-enabled workflows.
• Build and deploy AI agents and agentic systems.
• Work directly with enterprise customers to understand complex requirements.
• Own projects from initial customer requirements through architecture, development and deployment.
• Translate customer problems into scalable technical solutions.
• Prototype new functionality and transition prototypes to production.
• Own significant components of product and infrastructure.
• Collaborate with founders and senior engineers on decisions.
• Troubleshoot complex issues with customers.
• Assist customer implementations, adoption and expansion.
• Leverage modern AI development tools to boost velocity.

Skills

Python

Java

TypeScript

Backend

Full-stack

Customer-facing

Ownership

Autonomy

Problem-solving

AI tooling

Job description

Our client is a high-growth, early-stage company building production-grade AI and agentic technology.

The company is hiring multiple exceptional Forward Deployed AI Engineers / Software Engineers in San Francisco.

These positions sit at the intersection of software engineering, applied AI, product and enterprise customers. Engineers will build core product functionality and production systems while working directly with customers to understand complex workflows, develop solutions and own deployments end-to-end.

This is not a traditional solutions consulting role. The company wants strong software engineers who enjoy being customer-facing, not customer-facing professionals who only do light coding.

Depending on your background, you may lean more heavily toward forward-deployed customer work or core backend/infrastructure engineering. In either case, you'll be expected to build production software and operate with significant autonomy.

What You’ll Do

• Build and ship production-grade AI, backend and full-stack systems
• Develop APIs, integrations, automations and AI-enabled workflows
• Build and deploy AI agents and agentic systems
• Work directly with enterprise customers to understand complex business and technical requirements
• Own projects from initial customer requirements through architecture, development and deployment
• Translate customer problems into scalable technical solutions
• Rapidly prototype new functionality and convert successful prototypes into production systems
• Own significant components of the product and infrastructure
• Work closely with founders and senior engineers on technical and product decisions
• Troubleshoot complex technical issues directly with customers
• Help drive customer implementations, adoption and expansion
• Use modern AI development tools to increase engineering velocity
• Travel periodically to customer sites depending on the position

Ideal Candidate

We're looking for an exceptional software engineer who wants more ownership and customer exposure than a traditional engineering role provides.

You may currently be a:

• Early-stage startup engineer
• Technical founder

The common denominator is strong software engineering ability combined with the communication skills and commercial curiosity to work directly with customers.

Requirements

• 2–6 years of professional software engineering experience
• Ideally 3–5 years of experience, including customer-facing engineering exposure
• Strong Python, Java and/or TypeScript
• Strong backend and/or full-stack engineering capabilities
• Experience building APIs, integrations and production systems
• Ability to independently own projects from requirements through deployment
• Strong technical problem-solving ability
• Comfortable interacting directly with both senior business leaders and engineers
• High attention to detail and strong work ethic
• High degree of autonomy and ownership
• Strong user of modern AI development tools such as Claude, Cursor, Codex or similar
• Interest in AI, FinTech, HealthTech, Government or other complex regulated industries
• Must be San Francisco-based or willing to relocate
• Comfortable working in office 5 days/week

Highly Desirable Backgrounds

We're particularly interested in candidates with experience as:

• Applied engineers from leading AI and AI-agent companies
• Early engineers at high-growth FinTech and HealthTech companies
• Engineers from fast-moving Series A–C startups
• Successful former founders or founding engineers
• YC founders or early YC startup engineers
• Big Tech engineers with strong zero-to-one or startup experience

Experience with companies or environments similar to Palantir, Sierra, Decagon, Glean, OpenAI, Anthropic, Ramp, Mercury, Brex or Slope is highly relevant.

Strong Plus

• Previous startup founder or founding engineer experience
• Production experience with LLMs, AI agents, agent orchestration or applied AI
• Consumer lending, commercial lending, mortgage or FinTech experience
• Document AI, OCR or computer vision experience
• Voice AI or telephony experience
• Experience building software in regulated or compliance-heavy industries
• Experience working directly with enterprise customers
• Exceptional technical achievement, including competitive programming, Math Olympiad, ICPC/IOI or similar accomplishments

Who Will Thrive

This role is designed for engineers who want to build, own and deploy, rather than work on a narrowly defined piece of a large engineering organization.

You should be comfortable moving between customer conversations, architecture decisions and hands-on coding. The strongest candidates combine the technical depth of a software engineer with the ownership, speed and communication skills of a startup founder.

Please note: This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

This is an opportunity to join an ambitious early-stage AI company, work directly with founders and enterprise customers, and help build the next generation of AI infrastructure for FinTech and lending.