Forward Deployed Engineer | Americas

Planhat; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Planhat is seeking a Founding Forward Deployed Engineer to embed with customers, designing data pipelines and automation for AI deployment. You will work directly with customers, learning their systems and delivering measurable AI-powered outcomes.

Join Planhat’s AI Deployment Program and shape a brand-new discipline, developing expertise in data engineering, systems design, and enterprise AI delivery from the ground up.

Qualifications

• 3–6 years of experience in consulting, data engineering, software engineering, or similar technical roles.
• Comfort working directly with customers in ambiguous environments.
• Curiosity, ownership, and interest in building something new.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites.
• Strong foundation in SQL and data modeling.
• Experience with Python and/or scripting languages.
• Experience integrating with APIs (REST/GraphQL).

Responsibilities

• Embed with customers and understand how their business and systems actually work.
• Engineer the data pipelines, workflows, and automations that make AI deliver outcomes in production.
• Work with the Forward Deployed Engineering team to accelerate delivery of AI-powered solutions.
• Develop technical intuition across data engineering and systems design and AI deployment.

Skills

SQL

Python

APIs (REST/GraphQL)

Data Modeling

Data Pipelines

Ambiguity tolerance

Tools

REST API

GraphQL

ETL/ELT

Job description

We solve the hardest problem in applied AI — deploying it in production. Planhat works with high-velocity companies to turn messy data and legacy systems into real AI-powered commercial outcomes. Not in theory. In production.

Planhat OS is a model-agnostic AI operating system where people and agents work together across the entire customer lifecycle. At its heart is Pi, the world’s first multiplayer customer agent. Think Salesforce, Slack and Claude all in one and Google Cloud has stated that Planhat has built the first next-generation CRM.

We’re 250+ people, profitable, and growing fast. The world’s biggest logos run on Planhat because Salesforce and ServiceNow can’t deliver fast enough.

More specifically, the people who do this well bring:

3–6 years of experience in consulting, data engineering, software engineering, or similar technical roles

Comfort working directly with customers and operating in ambiguous environments

Curiosity, ownership, and interest in building something new

Willingness to travel to customer sites

The ability to learn fast — this is the most important trait of all

Technical foundations:

Strong foundation in SQL and data modeling

Experience with Python and/or other scripting languages

Experience integrating with APIs (REST / GraphQL)

Strong foundation in agentic systems and experience with AI tools to accelerate delivery

Familiarity with data pipelines, ETL/ELT, or workflow automation is a bonus but not required

Trajectory

Forward Deployed Engineers are the heart of Planhat's AI Deployment Program. Joining Planhat as a Founding FDE at this moment is a unique professional accelerant:

Work with companies that are early adopters of AI and want to build the future with us

Gain experience in data engineering, systems design, AI deployment, workflow automation, and commercial operations — all at once

Become fluent in applied AI: not model research, but the much harder, much rarer skill of deploying AI that actually works

Develop technical intuition that is extremely rare in the market — the type that opens doors to engineering leadership, product architecture, or applied AI roles in any industry

Shape a brand-new discipline. FDE is to this decade what full-stack engineering was to the previous one

As our Founding FDE, you'll embed with customers, understand how their business and systems actually work, and engineer the data pipelines, workflows, and automations that make AI useful and valuable.

Definition of Success

You are continuously delivering AI-powered outcomes for customers that are measurable, scalable, and repeatable

You are consistently seen as a trusted technical partner by customers, bridging the gap between messy real-world complexity and AI systems that actually work

You are building the playbook for Forward Deployment Engineering at Planhat — shaping a discipline that is just beginning to emerge

You are growing your technical intuition across data engineering, systems design, AI deployment, and commercial operations simultaneously

You are helping companies transition into the AI era with clarity, speed, and real outcomes

Compensation

The OTE (base + variable) salary range for this position is $170,000 - $250,000 per year. Please note that actual salaries will vary based on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. Please also note the range listed is just one component of the company’s total rewards package for exempt employees. Other rewards may include performance bonuses, long term incentives, a generous PTO policy, and other benefits.

The Forward Deployed Engineering team

The bridge between Planhat's platform and the real-world complexity of enterprise AI deployment, embedding directly with customers to engineer the data pipelines, workflows, and automations that make AI actually work in production. We tackle the hardest problem in applied AI: not building the model, but delivering outcomes in environments full of messy data, legacy systems, and organizational friction. We are shaping a brand new discipline, and we are just getting started.

About us

We're building the operating system for autonomous companies.

The future enterprise is autonomous. Commercial processes that today depend on human effort - servicing, retaining, expanding, selling and supporting — will increasingly be automated. The companies that make this transition will pull ahead. The ones that don't won't survive.
Planhat exists to make that transition real.
We started bootstrapped. Customer-funded, built on discipline instead of venture capital. That foundation shaped everything: how we build, how we sell, how we think about the long game.
Today, Planhat is the agentic customer platform of choice for 700+ companies — powering close to 10 million commercial relationships worldwide and billions of dollars runs through our platform. Wiz, Revolut, Nasdaq, Synthesia, Workday and Dropbox run their customer revenue through Planhat every year.
The shift driving all of this: business is moving to an outcome economy. Companies of the future will not buy software alone anymore — they want outcomes, and they renew or consume more when they get them. That changes everything about what enterprise software needs to be.
The winners will be the ones who build the context layer - a deep, structured, living picture of their business reality. Process automation deployed by operators — not advisors.
The outcome gap is the opportunity. Context is the moat. Deployment is the differentiator. We're building all three.
Our team spans the globe, anchored by offices in Los Angeles, London, and Stockholm. Join us.