Forward Deployed Engineer

HartleyCo; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Ownership from day one

Small, high-agency team

Fast-moving environment

Job summary

HartleyCo, a YC startup in San Francisco, is seeking a highly technical engineer to work close to product and customer problems rather than in a siloed engineering function. This role offers real ownership and a fast-moving environment with very little bureaucracy.

You will build AI agents, write production code in Python and Node.js/TypeScript, design infrastructure, deploy systems into customer environments, and collaborate with enterprise stakeholders to solve operational challenges.

Qualifications

• Early-stage AI startup experience is a strong plus.
• Backend or product engineering background from high-caliber teams.
• Experience building with LLMs, agents or AI-native tooling.

Responsibilities

• Build AI agents and production-grade code for real-world workflows.
• Design scalable cloud infrastructure and APIs for integrations.
• Deploy systems into customer environments and monitor effectiveness.
• Work directly with enterprise stakeholders to address operational problems.
• Help shape product and technical direction from day one.

Skills

Python

Node.js

TypeScript

APIs

LLMs

AI agents

Tools

Cloud platforms

Job description

I’m working with a YC startup building AI systems that are being deployed directly into real-world enterprise workflows.

They’ve recently raised their Seed round, signed initial customers, and are now looking for a highly technical engineer who wants to operate closer to the business, product, and customer problems rather than sitting in a siloed engineering function.

This is not a traditional solutions engineer role.

You’ll be:

• building AI agents
• writing production code
• designing infrastructure
• deploying systems into customer environments
• working directly with enterprise stakeholders to solve operational problems

The founders are specifically looking for engineers who can both:

• build at a high technical level
• communicate clearly with customers

The backgrounds they tend to like:

• early engineers at AI startups
• strong backend or product engineers from high-calibre engineering companies
• engineers already building with LLMs, agents, or AI-native tooling

What makes the role interesting:

• Very early-stage with real traction already
• Small, high-agency team
• Real ownership from day one
• Fast-moving environment with very little bureaucracy
• Opportunity to shape both product and technical direction early
• Python
• Node.js / TypeScript
• APIs + integrations
• AI agents / LLM systems
• cloud infrastructure

You’ll likely enjoy this if:

• you want your work close to customers/users
• you prefer ownership over process
• you’re excited by agentic AI systems rather than traditional SaaS