Forward Deployed Engineer

Risely AI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Risely AI is looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer in San Francisco who will own customer deployments from the moment a contract is signed until the product is operational.

You will work closely with customers, tackling data engineering, backend services, and frontend development, while ensuring customer requirements are met. This role requires strong skills in TypeScript, Python, React, and data management while fostering direct customer relationships.

Commitment to in-person work is essential, as building the product requires full presence and collaboration within the team.

Qualifications

• 1-5 years of building full-stack production systems.
• Ability to debug data pipelines and ship frontend tweaks.
• Experience in translating customer needs into technical solutions.

Responsibilities

• Own customer deployments from kickoff to working product.
• Handle data engineering and backend services.
• Build customer-facing UI and configure workflows.

Skills

TypeScript

Python

React

Node

SQL

Data cleaning and mapping

API design

Job description

Downtown San Francisco · in-person 5 days a week · travel to customers $120-180K

The role

You own the customer from the moment a contract is signed to the day the product is working inside their institution. Every layer of the stack that has to come together for that to happen is yours.

Every university is different. Their systems are messy, their data is partial, their workflows live in people's heads. The job is to walk into that environment, figure out what is actually true, and ship working software against it. Sometimes that means a Salesforce integration. Sometimes it means a custom React dashboard for a dean. Sometimes it means rewriting an agent's workflow at 11pm because tomorrow's launch needs it. You do all of it.

The pace is hours and days. A deployment that takes a quarter elsewhere takes us weeks here, and you are the reason that's true.

What you'll own

• Customer deployments end to end. You own the kickoff, the discovery, the technical design, the build, the launch, and the first weeks of usage. A deployment is yours from week one to working product.
• Data engineering. Map the customer's data, build the pipelines, normalize messy schemas across SIS, LMS, CRM, advancement, and finance systems. You handle missing fields, deduping, write-backs, syncs, and the long tail of edge cases that always show up in real institutions.
• Backend services. Build the APIs and integrations that sit between the customer's systems and our agents. Production code that runs reliably inside real institutions.
• Frontend work. Ship the dashboard the dean actually opens. Build the interfaces the advisors actually use. Customer-facing UI is part of the deployment, and you build it.
• Last-mile agents and workflows. Configure and customize agents for each customer's actual workflow. Tune prompts, define tools, set guardrails, wire up the workflows that match how this specific institution operates. Generic agents lose; customer-specific agents win.
• Launching with the customer. You run the go-live. Cutover plans, dry runs, rollback plans, sitting next to the customer on launch day. When something breaks at 7am, you diagnose, prototype, and ship. Sometimes within hours.
• Training the customer. Build the runbooks, train the end users, walk advisors and admins through the product, capture feedback in real time. A deployment is only successful when the customer can use it without you in the room.
• Feeding the platform. When you see the same customer-specific problem twice, you push it back to the platform team with the right framing so the third customer never has to wait.

Who you are

A full-stack builder who actually likes customers. The kind of engineer who can sit in a working session with a dean and walk out knowing exactly what to ship by Friday.

• Strong across the stack. TypeScript, Python, React, Node, SQL. You debug a data pipeline, ship a frontend tweak, and design an API in the same day.
• Fluent with data. Real institutional data is messy, partial, and inconsistent. You map it, clean it, reconcile it, and turn it into something the agents can use.
• A shipper. A working version this week beats a perfect version next month. You move at the pace of the customer conversation and close loops fast.
• Customer-fluent. You translate institutional pain into code, and code back into something the customer trusts.
• AI-native. You orchestrate Claude Code agents alongside your own work. You have a real point of view on where agents add leverage and where humans still have to drive.

1-5 years of building full-stack production systems. You're joining the founding team and the upside reflects that.

What it's like to work here

• In-person commitment. We're in the office together. Building at this stage takes full presence and full focus, and that often means evenings and the occasional Saturday.
• Speed and impact. Your work ships fast and reaches students and staff in days, not quarters.
• Mission clarity. Every line of code, every late night, every customer trip ties back to one purpose: helping students stay enrolled and helping colleges survive a generational shift.
• Ownership from week one. You'll make critical decisions and drive real outcomes from the start.
• Deep, meaningful work. You'll wrestle with data complexity, privacy regulations, and decades-old legacy systems. The problems are hard, and solving them changes how universities run.

Apply for Forward Deployed Engineer

Risely is unable to sponsor work visas at this time. Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S.