Forward Deployed Engineer

Stealth AI Startup; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid vacation

Paid sick leave

Paid parental leave

Professional development budget

Choice of laptop and accessories

Health, dental, vision coverage

Job summary

Stealth AI Startup is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to own the technical side of customer GTM, running POCs and troubleshooting integrations for enterprise clients. You will engage directly with senior engineers to drive deployment success and ensure live customer outcomes.

Role requires hands-on production coding, AI agent experience, and deep knowledge of identity, security, and deployment architectures. Hybrid work and strong equity opportunities are part of the package.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of forward-deployed engineer, solutions architect, or sales engineer experience with a CS background.
• Ability to write and debug production code independently, not just run demos.
• Hands-on experience building AI agents and discussing architecture, memory, and tool design.
• Depth in identity/auth, MCP, agent frameworks, security, deployment, networking, or observability.
• AI-native workflow; uses AI to build, not just to prompt.
• Executive presence to lead senior technical executives in the room.
• High ownership and accountability to ensure delivery of solutions.
• Experience at a high-growth B2B startup in a forward-deployed role or pre-sales.
• Open-source contributions or published content in agent, identity, or policy spaces.
• Experience as a FDE at Palantir is a plus.
• Competitive salary and equity are expected.
• Paid vacation, paid sick leave, and paid parental leave.
• Professional development budget for conferences, courses, and certifications.
• Choice of laptop and accessories.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.

Responsibilities

• Own POC outcomes for enterprise customers.
• Run pre-sales technical deep dives, demos, and architecture discussions.
• Troubleshoot integrations across customer environments, including identity, security, and networking.
• Build custom configurations and one-off solutions when the standard path does not fit.
• Run technical onboarding sessions and adoption workshops.
• Be the technical expert in the room during sales cycles, handling hard questions from senior engineers.

Skills

Enterprise pre-sales

Solution architecture

Production coding

AI agent development

Security & identity

Education

Computer Science degree

Tools

AI agent frameworks

Security tooling

Job description

Location: New York City or San Francisco (hybrid)

About our client

Our client is building the enterprise platform for MCPs, skills, and AI agents: purpose-built security, fine-grained governance, and complete observability so organizations can go all-in on AI without taking on the risk. The team helped establish the protocol itself, having built AI Actions at OpenAI, shipped agent products to millions of users, and launched the first remote MCP server alongside a frontier lab. The company recently raised a $30M Series A led by a top-tier fund, bringing total funding to $42M. Customers already include Gusto, Instacart, Opendoor, dbt Labs, Cursor, and Decagon. The team is 35 people, mostly engineers, and shipping fast: agent operators on the platform grew 5x in four weeks while human operators stayed flat.

Role overview

The Forward Deployed Engineer will own the technical side of customer GTM. This means running POCs, troubleshooting integrations, and working directly with enterprise customers to get them live. If a POC ships, this hire made it happen. The role owns customer outcomes end-to-end, from the first technical deep dive through full deployment, sitting at the intersection of enterprise sales and deep technical work.

Key responsibility

• Own POC outcomes for enterprise customers
• Run pre-sales technical deep dives, demos, and architecture discussions
• Troubleshoot integrations across customer environments, including identity, security, and networking
• Build custom configurations and one-off solutions when the standard path does not fit
• Run technical onboarding sessions and adoption workshops
• Be the technical expert in the room during sales cycles, handling hard questions from senior engineers

Required qualifications

• 5+ years of forward-deployed engineer, solutions architect, or sales engineer experience with a CS background
• Background in solutions engineering, pre-sales, or consulting with real technical depth; able to write and debug production code independently, not just run demos
• Hands-on experience building AI agents, with the ability to talk through architecture, memory, and tool design
• Depth in at least one relevant area: identity and auth, MCP, agent frameworks, security, deployment, networking, or observability
• AI-native workflow; uses AI to build, not just to prompt
• Executive presence, with the ability to hold a room full of senior technical executives
• High agency and ownership, with the drive to make sure a solution actually gets delivered
• Prior solutions, pre-sales, or forward-deployed role at a high-growth B2B startup
• Open-source contributions or published content in the agent, identity, or policy paces
• Experience working as a FDE at Palantir
• Competitive salary and equity
• Paid vacation, paid sick leave, and paid parental leave
• Professional development budget for conferences, courses, and certifications
• Choice of laptop and accessories
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage