Forward Deployed Engineer

Digital Waffle; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Waffle in San Francisco is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with enterprise customers, understanding workflows and delivering real value in days, not quarters.

You'll embed with design partners, build integrations, prototypes and production features using Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js, and influence the product roadmap based on field feedback. This role requires high autonomy and 5 days in-office.

Qualifications

• Experience shipping production code end to end in a startup or early-growth environment.
• Comfortable presenting to enterprise customers and translating business problems into technical solutions.
• Proficiency with modern AI tooling and ability to use it to raise output.

Responsibilities

• Embed with enterprise customers to understand workflows, pain points and real-world constraints.
• Build custom integrations, prototypes and production features that turn pilots into committed usage.
• Ship end to end across Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js.
• Feed field insight back into product and engineering to shape the broader roadmap.
• Own problems end to end, from first customer conversation through to deployed, instrumented code.
• Use AI tooling (Claude, Cursor and similar) throughout your workflow to move fast without compromising quality.
• Partner closely with founders, product and GTM to turn customer conversations into shipped features.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

React

Next.js

Job description

A high-growth AI-native startup is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer in San Francisco to work alongside their earliest enterprise customers and ship real production value in days, not quarters.

This is a role for engineers who want to be close to the customer. You’ll embed with design partners, understand their workflows in detail, and build the integrations, prototypes and production code that turn the product into something they can’t live without. Expect wide scope across the stack and direct influence over the product roadmap based on what you learn in the field.

Location: San Francisco, 5 days per week in office

What you’ll be doing:

• Embed with enterprise customers to understand workflows, pain points and real-world constraints
• Build custom integrations, prototypes and production features that turn pilots into committed usage
• Ship end to end across Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js
• Feed field insight back into product and engineering to shape the broader roadmap
• Own problems end to end, from first customer conversation through to deployed, instrumented code
• Use AI tooling (Claude, Cursor and similar) throughout your workflow to move fast without compromising quality
• Partner closely with founders, product and GTM to turn customer conversations into shipped features

What you’ll need:

• Strong commercial software engineering experience with Python, TypeScript, React and Next.js
• Track record shipping production code end to end, ideally in a startup or early-growth environment
• Comfortable in front of enterprise customers, able to translate business problems into technical solutions
• Fluent in modern AI tooling (Claude, Cursor, Copilot and similar) and able to use it to materially raise your output
• High autonomy, high ownership and the pragmatism to know what good enough looks like
• Happy working 5 days a week in-person with a small, high-intensity team

Nice to have:

• Prior Forward Deployed, Solutions or Applied Engineering experience
• Exposure to AI/LLM product work or agentic systems
• Background shipping to large enterprise users with real integration complexity

This role would suit an engineer who wants to sit at the sharp end, build with real users in the room and see their code land in production the same week.