Forward Deployed Engineer - Akai

Deel

United States

Remote

USD 140,000 - 190,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

401k Retirement Plan

Disability Insurance

Life Insurance

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Flexible Savings Account (FSA)

Flexible time off (PTO)

12 paid holidays per year

Parental leave: 16 weeks

Job summary

Deel is hiring a Forward-Deployed Engineer to work directly with mid-market and enterprise customers. You’ll design AI-driven agents, prototype solutions, and drive adoption after go-live, balancing consultative influence with deep technical execution.

Bring strong client-facing experience, the ability to present clean decks, and a practical background in AI/ML prototyping. Location flexibility and a fast-paced startup culture are expected.

Qualifications

3–5 years of experience with senior enterprise stakeholders.
Polished, client-facing background in consulting, startup, or product solutions roles.
Genuinely technical: built prototypes with AI, integrated tools, and wired agents.

Responsibilities

Own customer implementations end-to-end for mid-market and enterprise accounts.
Collaborate with senior engineers on larger deployments and account workstreams.
Immerse in customer environments to understand operations and identify pain points.

Skills

Client-facing

Technical AI/ML

SQL

APIs

No-code tools

Claude prototyping

Storytelling & decking

Tools

Claude

JSON

Scripting basics

Job description

Who we are is what we do.

Deel is the all-in-one payroll and HR platform for global teams. Our vision is to unlock global opportunity for every person, team, and business. Built for the way the world works today, Deel combines HRIS, payroll, compliance, benefits, performance, and equipment management into one seamless platform. With AI-powered tools and a fully owned payroll infrastructure, Deel supports every worker type in 150+ countries—helping businesses scale smarter, faster, and more compliantly.

Among the largest globally distributed companies in the world, our team of 7,000 spans more than 100 countries, speaks 74 languages, and brings a connected and dynamic culture that drives continuous learning and innovation for our customers.

Why should you be part of our success story?

As the fastest-growing Software as a Service (SaaS) company in history, Deel is transforming how global talent connects with world-class companies – breaking down borders that have traditionally limited both hiring and career opportunities. We're not just building software; we're creating the infrastructure for the future of work, enabling a more diverse and inclusive global economy. In 2024 alone, we paid $11.2 billion to workers in nearly 100 currencies and provided healthcare and benefits to workers in 109 countries—ensuring people get paid and protected, no matter where they are.

Our momentum is reflected in our achievements and customer satisfaction: CNBC Disruptor 50, Forbes Cloud 100, Deloitte Fast 500, and repeated recognition on Y Combinator's top companies list – all while maintaining a 4.83 average rating from 15,000 reviews across G2, Trustpilot, Captera, Apple and Google.

Your experience at Deel will be a career accelerator. At the forefront of the global work revolution, you'll tackle complex challenges that impact millions of people's working lives. With our momentum—backed by a $17.3 billion valuation and $1 B in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in just over five years—you'll drive meaningful impact while building expertise that makes you a sought-after leader in the transformation of global work.

Summary

As a Forward-Deployed Engineer - Akai at Deel, you'll work directly with our customers — a mix of enterprises and mid-market companies — to understand how their operations really work, design agents that solve their most painful workflows, get those agents live, and drive adoption after go-live. The shape of this role is unusual, and it's worth being direct about who we're looking for. We want someone who is genuinely two things at once: polished and consultative enough that a CFO or a Head of Finance trusts you in the first hour of a meeting, and technical enough to open Claude and vibe-code a working prototype of what you just scoped with them. Presenting a clean deck and demoing an AI-built agent in the same session should feel natural to you, not like a stretch.

Responsibilities

Own customer implementations end-to-end for mid-market accounts — discovery, design, build, go-live, adoption, and expansion.
Partner with a senior FDE on larger enterprise deployments, taking on day-to-day execution and specific workstreams within the account.
Sit inside customer environments and learn how their operations really run — the systems, the people, and where the money is leaking.
Design and prototype agents using Deel's platform, Claude, and light scripting. Ship the first working version fast and iterate from real usage.
Ship small improvements to the product and to individual customer agents yourself when you spot them. Hand off larger platform work cleanly to the engineering team and own the handoff.
Drive adoption after go-live. Usage-based value means the work isn't done when the first agent is live — it's done when the customer's team is using what you built every day.
Spot expansion opportunities across the account and work with the relevant product and GTM leads to land them.
Bring the field back to the team — flag product gaps, help shape internal tooling, and help define how delivery scales as the team grows.

Qualifications

3–5 years of experience minimum. We'll consider strong two-year candidates, but this isn't a graduate role — you'll be sitting across from senior enterprise stakeholders who need to trust you from the first meeting.
A polished, client-facing background. Top-tier management consulting, a junior founder role, or a senior IC role in a customer-facing product, strategy, or solutions function at a fast-moving startup all work. Career switchers welcome.
Genuinely technical, in a modern way. Not “I've read about AI” but “I've built with it.” You've vibe-coded prototypes in Claude, wired agents together, and have a real point of view on what LLMs are good at and where they break. You've probably rebuilt part of your own workflow with AI already.
Enough technical fluency to prototype and debug on your own: SQL, light scripting, calling APIs, no-code tools, reading a JSON response. You don't need to be a software engineer, but you should be at least as technical as a strong PM at an AI-native company.
Strong customer instincts. You can present a clean deck and demo an AI-built prototype in the same meeting, and both should land.
Commercial sense. You care about revenue and expansion because they're proof the work landed.
Comfortable with pace and pressure. You've worked some where decisions happen in hours, not quarters, and things break unless you fix them.
Location flexible by team need — specify time zone coverage per requisition.

Bonus if you:

Have an engineering, mechanical, or applied science background — we've hired well from these profiles.
Have shipped an internal tool, agent, or automation at a previous company that changed how a team operated.
Have domain exposure relevant to the hiring team (e.g., finance, treasury, payments, KYB/AML, logistics, HR, or payroll).
Are multilingual, matching the region the requisition covers.

Benefits: Full-time employees in the United States receive a variety of benefits while employed at Deel.

Health Insurance Effective from Day 1 (Medical, Dental, & Vision)
401k Retirement Plan
Disability Insurance
Life Insurance
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Flexible Savings Account (FSA)
Flexible time off (PTO)
12 paid holidays per year
Parental leave: 16 weeks for the birthing parent and 8 weeks for the non-birthing parent

Total Rewards

Our workforce deserves fair and competitive pay that meets them where they are. With scalable benefits, rewards, and perks, our total rewards programs reflect our commitment to inclusivity and access for all.

Our salary range reflects gross base salary. For commercial roles with commission eligibility, this figure represents On-Target Earnings (OTE), inclusive of base salary and target commission.
Salary ranges are quoted in USD as a consistent global reference. Your offer will be localized to your country's currency using a market-aligned conversion.
Final pay is based on objective, job-related criteria including experience, skills, and location.
We don't ask about salary history. Offers are based on the role and what you bring to it.

Some things you'll enjoy

Stock grant opportunities dependent on your role, employment status and location
Additional perks and benefits based on your employment status and country
Optional flexible working office membership, with IWG

At Deel, we're an equal-opportunity employer that values diversity and positively encourage applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of race, religion, sex, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, pregnancy or maternity or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

Unless otherwise agreed, we will communicate with job applicants using Deel-specific emails, which include @deel.com and other acquired company emails like @payspace.com and @paygroup.com. You can view the most up-to-date job listings at Deel by visiting our careers page.

Deel welcomes persons with disabilities to apply to any of our open roles. We will provide application and/or interview accommodations on request throughout the recruitment, selection and assessment process for applicants with disabilities or other needs. If you require application and/or interview accommodations, please inform our Talent Acquisition Team via email (recruiting@deel.com) and a team member will be in touch to ensure your equal participation.

As part of our hiring process, we primarily rely on interviews and role-related assessments. In limited cases, we may also consider informal background information relevant to the role, in line with our privacy and fairness obligations.

This application process may utilise Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT) and AI systems to assist in evaluating candidates based on experience level, technical skills and qualifications. This processing is conducted in compliance with applicable Data Protection, AI Governance and Labour Laws. We ensure human oversight is maintained in all final hiring decisions. Your personal data is not used to train AI models. For more information on how we process your personal data, please see our Recruitment Privacy Policy.