Forward Deployed Engineer

David Joseph & Company; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Equity

Meals provided

Uncapped commission

Job summary

David Joseph & Company seeks a Forward Deployed Engineer in San Francisco, on-site. You will work with enterprise clients to understand systems, diagnose pain points, and scope and sell technical AI solutions at seed stage.

The role blends engineering, product, and operations, requiring cross-stack work across APIs, data layers, UI surfaces and LLM tooling. Compensation includes base 130,000–160,000 + uncapped commission (5–7%) and equity; relocation support provided.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years of experience in relevant roles.
• Forward-deployed/solutions engineering or customer-facing technical background.
• Genuine technical fluency with modern AI.
• Startup experience strongly preferred.
• On-site in San Francisco; relocation supported.

Responsibilities

• Work with enterprise customers to diagnose pain points and scope solutions.
• Sell technical solutions that fit customer needs.
• Collaborate across engineering, product, and operations.

Skills

Customer-facing tech

AI fluency

Startup experience

Solutions engineering

On-site SF

Tools

APIs

Data layers

UI surfaces

LLM tooling

Job description

San Francisco, CA · On-site · Full-timeCompensation: $130,000–$160,000 base + uncapped commission (5–7% of contract value) + 0.2–0.7% equity

About the Company

Our client is a seed-stage company building the AI-adoption layer for large US enterprises — the operating layer that makes enterprise AI reliable, safe, and genuinely usable at scale. The platform sits at the center of how big organizations adopt AI, serving both technical teams and operations leaders who rely on it to understand what their systems know, how their processes run, and how AI behaves in real scenarios. Early customers already include major media and entertainment enterprises. The team is small, engineering-led, and moves fast while holding a high bar for clarity, correctness, and maintainability.

Founded 2025 · 1–10 people (Seed) · Industry: AI Tools

The Role

A Forward Deployed Engineer role weighted more toward commercial work than pure engineering. Most of the job is going deep with enterprise customers — understanding their systems, diagnosing their real pain points, and scoping and selling a technical solution that fits. Technical fluency and working knowledge of AI are essential, but the role is measured on customer outcomes and closed contracts, not volume of code shipped. It sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and operations.

Tech stack: Cross-stack in practice — APIs, data layers, UI surfaces, and customer-facing tooling, with LLM / retrieval / search adjacency.

Requirements

• 2–5 years of experience
• A forward-deployed, solutions-engineering, or otherwise customer-facing technical background
• Genuine technical fluency and working knowledge of modern AI
• Prior startup experience (strongly preferred)
• On-site in San Francisco five days a week; relocation supported

Nice to Haves

• Prior forward-deployed engineering, solutions engineering, or comparable customer-facing technical experience
• A startup chapter with evidence of full end-to-end ownership rather than a narrow assigned scope
• A strong academic record
• Experience at a deployment-heavy AI company
• The rare ability to hold both sides of the role credibly — technical depth with enterprise buyers and commercial instinct in the room

Why Join

• Ground-floor commercial ownership: an early Forward Deployed Engineer working directly with the CEO, owning enterprise relationships from discovery through technical scoping to closed contract
• Major enterprise customers already onboard at seed stage
• Real upside: uncapped commission (5–7% of contract value) on top of base, plus meaningful early‑employee equity; meals covered and relocation supported

Details

• Location — San Francisco, CA
• Work policy — On-site, 5 days/week; relocation supported
• Compensation — $130,000–$160,000 base + uncapped commission (5–7% of contract value) + 0.2–0.7% equity
• Visa sponsorship — Available (H-1B, O-1, OPT)
• Employment type — Full-time