Forward Deployed Engineer

Trail; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Trail is a context layer AI for organizations. We’re building the governance layer that links rules, exceptions and knowledge with agents.

We’re hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with customers to design, build, and deploy AI-driven systems into live production environments. You will operate across frontend, backend and infrastructure, owning problems end-to-end—from initial requirements to production rollout.

Qualifications

• 2+ years in related roles; startup experience preferred.
• Experience building AI-native apps incl. chatbots and agentic workflows.
• Strong frontend design, state management, performance optimization.
• Backend and infrastructure understanding with secure data handling.
• Hands-on experience with production LLM systems, RAG pipelines, and embeddings.
• Ability to own problems end-to-end from design to production.
• Strong CS fundamentals.
• Experience in client-facing environments is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy AI-driven systems into live production environments.
• Own problems from requirements to production rollout.
• Design AI-native interfaces and workflows.
• Integrate LLM-powered systems and real-time applications that connect software to physical operations.

Skills

Forward Deployed Engineer

AI-native applications

Frontend system design

Backend & infrastructure

LLM systems

End-to-end ownership

CS fundamentals

Client-facing experience

Tools

APIs

Embedding/Vector search

Prompt design

RAG pipelines

Agent orchestration

Job description

About Us:

Trail is the context layer AI agents run on. We’re building the missing layer between your company’s rules, exceptions, and institutional knowledge and the agents trying to act on them. It’s a governed graph that lets any agent or platform, including Trail agents, make the right call on your most complex business processes. Agents today fail not because models are weak, but because they’re never given the judgment a business builds up over years. We’re fixing that.

Visit our Website and Youtube to learn more!

About the role

In this role, you will work directly with customers to design, build, and deploy AI-driven systems into live production environments. You will operate at the intersection of frontend, backend, and infrastructure, owning problems end-to-end — from initial requirements to production rollout. You will design AI-native interfaces and workflows, integrate LLM-powered systems, and build real-time applications that connect software to physical operations.

Qualifications

• 2+ years as a Forward Deployed Engineer, software engineer, ML engineer or equivalent — startup experience preferred; founder or founding engineer background is a plus.
• Experience building AI-native applications, including: chatbot / conversational interfaces, agentic workflows, RAG systems.
• Strong understanding of frontend system design, including: state management (local vs global vs server state), performance optimization, caching, and rendering patterns.
• Solid understanding of backend and infrastructure systems, including APIs, data flow, authentication/authorization, and secure data handling — with the ability to debug, design, and collaborate effectively across these layers
• Hands-on experience building production LLM systems, including RAG pipelines, agent orchestration, embeddings/vector search, and prompt design — with a strong understanding of trade-offs (latency, cost, hallucinations, reliability)
• Ability to own problems and systems end-to-end, from first principles and problem definition through design, implementation, and production.
• Strong foundations in computer science and software engineering principles
• Experience working in client-facing or high-ownership environments is a plus

Location : Remote