Forward Deployed Engineer

Velvet; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A technology company in San Francisco is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to handle the intersection of data operations and platform integration. The ideal candidate will be responsible for data acquisition, maintaining scripts for processing raw video data, and solving operational challenges. You should be detail-oriented and capable of thriving in fast-paced environments. Experience in research operations or machine learning is a plus. Competitive salary and growth opportunities are available.

Qualifications

• Comfortable writing data pipelines and managing large datasets.
• Detail-oriented and reliable in managing people and data at scale.
• Fast learner in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.

Responsibilities

• Own data procurement and participant qualification for data collection projects.
• Build and maintain post-processing scripts for video data.
• Identify and resolve operational issues related to data handling.
• Create internal tools to automate processes and increase efficiency.

Skills

Operations

Python

SQL

Claude Code

Job description

Skills: Operations, Python, SQL, Claude Code

We are hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to sit at the intersection of our platform and the real-world operations that power it. This is a hands‑on, execution‑focused role. You will own the end‑to‑end lifecycle of getting people onto our platform, procuring the data we need, and writing the scripts that turn collected footage into clean, usable training data.

What you'll do

• Own data procurement: identify, recruit, and qualify participants for active data collection projects.
• Meet with researchers from top labs to build the highest quality video datasets for them.
• Write and maintain post‑processing scripts that clean, validate, and package raw video data for training world models.
• Identify and resolve operational issues — failed video uploads, payment problems, etc
• Build lightweight internal tools and automations to reduce manual work and increase throughput as we scale.

Who you are

• A technically savvy generalist with impressive professional or academic accomplishments, comfortable writing data pipelines, making deals, and meeting with top researchers.
• Someone who gets things done
• Detail‑oriented and reliable when managing people and data at scale, where errors have downstream consequences.
• Comfortable working in ambiguous, fast‑moving environments

Even better if you have

• Background in research operations, data labeling platforms, or data collection.
• Experience building large‑scale data processing pipelines.
• Background in ML research.

You will thrive in this role if

• You are energized by operational work that has immediate, visible impact.
• You treat broken processes as engineering problems worth solving properly.
• You hold yourself to a high bar for data quality, knowing this determines model performance.