Forward-Deployed Engineer

Forum Ventures; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Elmeeda is the decision and coordination layer for American trucking. You’ll embed with maintenance directors, dispatchers, and shop managers to understand workflows and ship working software within weeks.

You’ll build integrations across telematics, TMS, and maintenance systems, design agent workflows on real-world fleet data, and own deployments end to end—from discovery to production on thousands of trucks.

Qualifications

• Real logistics/trucking experience in fleets, carriers, brokers, 3PLs, or fleet maintenance.
• Fluent with AI-native development tools (Claude Code, Codex) and agentic coding workflows.
• Strong full-stack engineering with integrations: REST/webhook APIs, data pipelines, telematics and maintenance platforms.
• High energy and customer-facing confidence in executive-facing situations.
• Extreme ownership and ability to operate amidst ambiguity and rapid iteration.

Responsibilities

• Embed with enterprise fleet customers to map workflows and ship working software within weeks.
• Build integrations across telematics, TMS, and maintenance systems.
• Design agent workflows on real-world fleet data and own deployments end-to-end.
• From discovery conversations to production running on thousands of trucks.

Skills

Logistics experience

AI tooling

Full-stack engineering

REST APIs

Data pipelines

Customer-facing

Ownership

Tools

Claude Code

Codex

Agentic coding

Job description

Full-time Chicago, IL (with travel to customer fleet sites)

Forum Ventures is a VC studio and fund that invests in and builds early-stage AI startups. Our talent team runs recruiting for our portfolio companies, so you're seeing this role posted under Forum, but you'd be joining Elmeeda directly as their employee, not us.

About Elmeeda

Elmeeda is the decision and coordination layer for American trucking. Every fleet runs 5–12 systems that don't talk to each other — telematics, TMS, maintenance, fuel, compliance — and today the fleet manager is the integration. Our AI reads every system and acts: when a truck throws a fault code 600 miles from base, Elmeeda assesses severity, picks the shop, calls the vendor, books the bay, files the warranty claim, recovers the load, and notifies the customer. We're live across multiple contracted fleets and deploying with a top-10 US carrier (10,000+ trucks). We're a Palantir Startup Fellowship company, winners of Palantir's DevCon hackathon, and backed by investors across AI, defense ontology, and fleet innovation.

The Role

This is not a build-from-the-office job. You'll embed directly with enterprise fleet customers — sitting with maintenance directors, dispatchers, and shop managers — to understand their workflows, then ship working software the same week. You'll build integrations across telematics, TMS, and maintenance systems, design agent workflows on top of messy real-world fleet data, and own deployments end to end: from first discovery conversation to production running on thousands of trucks.

Must Have

• Real logistics/trucking/supply chain experience — you've worked in or built for fleets, carriers, brokers, 3PLs, or fleet maintenance and understand how trucking operations actually run
• Expert, daily-driver fluency with AI-native development tools — Claude Code, Codex, and agentic coding workflows are how you build, not something you're "familiar with." You should be able to demonstrate this live
• Strong full-stack engineering with a bias for integrations: REST/webhook APIs, data pipelines, third-party systems (telematics, TMS, maintenance platforms)
• Extremely high energy and customer-facing confidence — comfortable presenting to a VP of Maintenance in the morning and shipping the fix that afternoon
• Extreme ownership — you run at ambiguity, don't wait for specs, and treat the customer's problem as yours

Nice-to-Have

• Prior forward-deployed experience (Palantir-style FDE / deployment strategist, or equivalent embedded customer engineering)
• GCP
• Palantir AIP / Foundry — ontology-driven data modeling and operational AI
• Voice AI: ElevenLabs and Twilio

Why This Role

• You'll be the first deployment-side engineering hire at a company going from first enterprise contract to industry standard, working directly with the founders. Your work runs on real trucks moving real freight from week one.