Forward Deployed Engineer

Trail; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Trail is the context layer AI agents run on. We're building the missing layer between your company's rules, exceptions, and institutional knowledge and the agents trying to act on them. It's a governed graph that lets any agent or platform, including Trail agents, make the right call on your most complex business processes.

Agents today fail not because models are weak, but because they're never given the judgment a business builds up over years. We're fixing that.

Qualifications

• 2+ years as a Forward Deployed Engineer or software engineer; startup experience preferred; founder or founding engineer background is a plus.
• Proficiency in Python, Go, JavaScript, or similar.
• Ability to proactively surface customer challenges during onboarding.
• End-to-end ownership mindset — you figure out what you don't know and get it done.
• A humble, collaborative attitude with a high-output, multi-project operating style.

Responsibilities

• Be the technical partner for customers, driving deployments from ideation to production.
• Translate customer problems into clear requirements (PRDs, workflows, success criteria) and build them.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Solutions teams to build platform features.

Skills

FDE experience

Programming languages

Onboarding skills

Ownership mindset

Team collaboration

Job description

About Us

Trail is the context layer AI agents run on. We're building the missing layer between your company's rules, exceptions, and institutional knowledge and the agents trying to act on them. It's a governed graph that lets any agent or platform, including Trail agents, make the right call on your most complex business processes. Agents today fail not because models are weak, but because they're never given the judgment a business builds up over years. We're fixing that.

Visit our Website and Youtube to learn more!

The Role

We're looking for a technically strong, customer-focused Forward Deployed Engineer to help enterprise customers build and scale Agentic AI — from first conversation to production.

What You'll Do

• Be the technical partner for customers, driving deployments from ideation to production.

• Translate customer problems into clear requirements (PRDs, workflows, success criteria) and build them.

• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Solutions teams to build platform features.

What We're Looking For

• 2+ years as a Forward Deployed Engineer or software engineer — startup experience preferred; founder or founding engineer background is a plus.

• Proficiency in at least one language: Python, Go, JavaScript, or similar.

• Ability to proactively surface customer challenges during onboarding.

• End-to-end ownership mindset — you figure out what you don't know and get it done.

• A humble, collaborative attitude with a high-output, multi-project operating style.

Details

Hybrid (2 days/week in Palo Alto). Bay Area based.
Base salary: $130,000–$160,000, plus equity and benefits.