Forward Deployed Engineer

Touchdown Labs, Inc.; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 160,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Benefits

Job summary

Touchdown Labs in Santa Clara, CA is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with customer teams, scoping AI workloads and delivering hands-on implementations.

You'll deploy and evaluate systems, train customer engineers, and ensure successful handoffs. The role emphasizes practical delivery, clear communication with engineers and executives, and the ability to convert vague requests into scoped, testable work.

Qualifications

• Shipped production software experience.
• Experience deploying LLm-based systems or ML infrastructure.
• Willingness to work onsite in Santa Clara, CA.

Responsibilities

• Scope and deploy AI workloads with customers.
• Build, deploy, and measure systems with acceptance tests.
• Handoff and train customer engineers.

Skills

Shipped production software

Onsite customer engagement

LLM deployment

Python or TypeScript

Cloud platforms

GPU serving basics

Tools

Python

TypeScript

GPU serving

Job description

# Forward Deployed EngineerWork inside customer teams to scope, build, and hand off AI systems that do real work.**Location:** Santa Clara, CAAll roles →Apply for this role →---Mid–SeniorSanta ClaraOpenings: MultipleOpen role## Forward Deployed Engineer### Our missionAI is becoming fundamental to how the world works. When it is, the ability to compute, and to manufacture the hardware that computes, should not be concentrated in a few places. Touchdown's mission is to make compute accessible to the whole world and to reindustrialize advanced semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. We co-design everything for next-generation compute: the AI systems people use, the software that serves them, the architectures and chips underneath, and the packaging, test, and manufacturing that make them real. Co-design brings down the complexity and cost of building compute. That is what makes manufacturing in America competitive again, and what puts compute within reach of people and companies everywhere. We build alongside the world's best manufacturing ecosystems, including Taiwan's, and every role here makes one layer better and carries what it learns to the rest.### Why this role mattersReal workloads are the most important input to co-design. Forward deployed engineers make AI work inside customer teams, and what they learn shapes every layer we build.### Technical scopeScoping AI workloads with customers; agents, retrieval, and evaluation; inference serving, model selection, and cost and latency measurement; integration with customer data and systems; deployment, monitoring, and handoff; teaching customer engineers to operate what we build.### First 90 days* Run customer diagnostics and written recommendations.* Build and deploy scoped systems with signed acceptance tests.* Hand off with runbooks and train customer engineers.### What you will own* Scoping with customer engineers and executives.* Building, deploying, and measuring systems.* Handoff and training.* Feeding patterns back to the platform.### What you bring* Shipped production software.* Comfortable onsite with customers.* Turns vague requests into scoped, testable work.* Clear communication with engineers and executives.* Has deployed LLM-based systems or ML infrastructure for real users.* Comfortable with Python or TypeScript, cloud platforms, and GPU serving basics.### Helpful experience* Agents, retrieval, and evaluation* Inference cost work### How we work* AI-native by default. You use coding agents, AI-assisted analysis, and automation every day, and you check their output against measurements before anyone relies on it.* We work alongside foundries, test houses, OSATs, and research labs, and we build with partners rather than against them.### How the role works* Full-time.* Location: Santa Clara, CA.* Openings: Multiple.* Pay: $160,000–$225,000 base (Santa Clara, CA).* Ranges are base pay for U.S. roles and depend on location, experience, and level. Full-time roles also include equity and benefits. Taiwan pay is set to the local market and discussed in the first call.* Start date and employment details are discussed during the process.Apply for this role →Applications are reviewed against the work described here. We do not use a degree, title, or keyword list as a substitute for evidence.