Forward Deployed Engineer

quadric, Inc; Burlingame (CA); On-site; USD 175,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Equity

Discretionary annual bonus

Paid parental leave

401(k)

Flexible PTO

Downtown Burlingame office

Job summary

Quadric, a Burlingame, CA-based semiconductor IP company, is redefining edge AI with Chimera GPNPU. We’re growing our field engineering team and seek Forward Deployed Engineers to take the architecture from customer evaluation to design win.

You’ll own the technical path to design wins, port workloads, write custom kernels, and collaborate with customer teams. The role spans quantization, kernels, and compiler tooling, with equity and a discretionary bonus.

Qualifications

• Strong C++ and Python; has written performance-critical code for a constrained target (DSP, NPU, GPU, or embedded SoC).
• Systems-level performance intuition — memory bandwidth, data movement, cycle-level reasoning.
• High agency and independent problem-solving; methodical and empirical.

Responsibilities

• Own the Technical Path to Design Win: convert 2–3 active evaluations into committed design wins.
• Port customer workloads onto Chimera; architect, adapt, profile, and write custom kernels when required.
• Embed with Customer Engineering Teams: on-site and remote support, hit benchmarks, guide model-architecture tradeoffs.
• Build the Agentic FDE Toolkit: codify learnings into reusable assets and porting playbooks.
• Close the Loop Internally: share learnings with engineering and product teams to influence the roadmap.

Skills

C++

Python

Performance profiling

Autonomy

Distributed systems

Tools

Claude Code

MCP

Job description

About Quadric

Quadric is redefining edge AI with the industry's first General Purpose Neural Processing Unit (GPNPU), enabling developers to run both neural network inference and conventional C++ code on a single programmable architecture. Our technology powers intelligent edge devices across automotive, industrial, robotics, and embedded systems.

Founded by technologists from MIT and Carnegie Mellon, Quadric is a well-funded, Series C semiconductor IP company with a growing licensing business. As we scale our field engineering function, we're looking for Forward Deployed Engineers to take our novel Chimera GPNPU architecture from customer evaluation to committed design win.

The Opportunity

You'll own the technical path from customer evaluation to silicon design and win on a genuinely novel architecture, the Quadric Chimera GPNPU, which runs everything from CNNs to LLMs to arbitrary C++ on one core, with no fallback processor. Unlike a FAANG solutions role, you'll work the entire stack: quantization, custom kernels, and compiler and your fingerprints will be on chips that ship in cars, cameras, and network appliances.

At a Series C company, every design win has outsized impact. Our FDEs also build with frontier agentic tooling (Claude Code–based agentic workflows) — you won't just be supporting the product, you'll be inventing how edge-AI field engineering is done.

What You'll Do

Own the Technical Path to Design Win

• Convert 2–3 active customer evaluations into committed design wins by getting customer workloads running at target latency and accuracy on Chimera.
• Port customer workloads onto Chimera — architect, adapt, profile, and write custom kernels when required.

Embed with Customer Engineering Teams

• Work on-site and remotely with customer engineering teams: debug failures, hit benchmark targets, and guide model-architecture tradeoffs.
• Drive evaluations forward end-to-end, from first technical conversation through design win.

Build the Agentic FDE Toolkit

• Codify what you learn into reusable assets — SDK skills, porting playbooks, and agentic content — so each subsequent engagement moves faster than the last.
• Build applications and benchmark collateral that support future customer engagements.

Close the Loop Internally

• Partner with engineering and product teams to relay customer learnings and shape the roadmap.
• Contribute skills and playbooks to Quadric's growing agentic FDE toolset.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first 6–12 months, you'll:

• Convert 2–3 active customer evaluations into committed design wins on the Chimera platform.
• Build deep fluency across the Chimera stack — quantization, custom kernels, and compiler tooling — well enough to unblock customers independently.
• Establish reusable SDK skills and porting playbooks that measurably shorten the next engagement's timeline.
• Become a trusted technical partner to customer engineering teams, known for translating ambiguous requirements into shipped results.
• Help define and refine Quadric's agentic (Claude Code–based) FDE workflow — there's no existing playbook yet; you'll help write it.

What We're Looking For

Required

• Strong C++ and Python; has written performance-critical code for a constrained target (DSP, NPU, GPU, or embedded SoC).
• Systems-level performance intuition — memory bandwidth, data movement, cycle-level reasoning — and can read a profile and know where the time went.
• High agency and independent problem-solving; methodical and empirical rather than theoretical.
• Comfortable operating without a playbook and in ambiguity — this role is still being defined.

Preferred

• Prior FAE, Sales Engineering, or FDE title — or startup experience as the de facto owner of an end-to-end implementation.
• Familiarity with agentic dev tooling (Claude Code, MCP) — or strong enthusiasm to adopt it.
• Background at NPU/edge-AI IP and silicon companies (e.g., Qualcomm SNPE/QNN, NVIDIA TensorRT/Jetson field engineering, Ceva, Cadence Tensilica, Synopsys ARC, Arm, Hailo, Ambarella, SiMa.ai, Axelera, EdgeCortix).
• Background at inference-focused startups (e.g., Groq, Untether, Tenstorrent) in field/customer engineering or kernel teams.
• FDE experience — candidates with embedded or ML-systems backgrounds.
• Experience at technical trading arms optimizing kernels or hardware for speed
• Big-firm consulting background, provided the candidate personally did the hands‑on technical work rather than managing it.

What We Offer

The base salary range for this position is $175,000 to $225,000. This range reflects the full span of levels and geographies at which Quadric hires for this role. The actual base salary offered will depend on a number of factors, including the specific level of the role, years and depth of relevant experience, technical skills and competencies, the criticality of the role to the business, internal equity, and work location. In addition to base salary, this role is eligible for equity and a discretionary annual performance bonus as applicable to the role and level.

In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a variety of benefits to support your needs. The benefits below reflect our US‑based offerings; for roles in other locations, benefits vary and are shared during the hiring process. These include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance from day one - Premiums covered at 99% for Employees
• Company‑paid life Insurance
• Voluntary supplemental life insurance
• STD + LTD insurance
• Commuter support including parking or Caltrain reimbursement. Our office is conveniently located within walking distance of the Caltrain station
• FSA + HSA
• Equity with the business
• Paid Parental Leave
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Flexible PTO
• Winter holiday shutdown
• Catered lunch each day in our office
• Downtown Burlingame office location, close to shops, cafes, and local amenities
• Collaborative, low‑ego culture with significant ownership and impact
• A work culture focused on innovative disruption

About Quadric

Founded in 2016 and based in downtown Burlingame, California, Quadric is building the world's first supercomputer designed for the real‑time needs of edge devices. Quadric aims to empower developers in every industry with superpowers to create tomorrow's technology, today. The company was co‑founded by technologists from MIT and Carnegie Mellon, who were previously the technical co‑founders of the Bitcoin computing company 21.

Quadric is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where people from all backgrounds can do their best work. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.