Forward Deployed Engineering Lead

Lovable; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Lovable is seeking an exceptional Forward Deployed Engineering Lead in San Francisco to build and lead a high-velocity FDE team. You will remain hands-on, code alongside your engineers, and work directly with ambitious customers to deploy AI-powered software solutions.

You will shape how the function operates globally, maintain high technical standards, and partner with product and customer teams to translate deployments into platform improvements. Lovable rewards ownership and fast iteration.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering, architecture, and customer-facing work.
• Experience leading and developing high-performing technical teams.
• Hands-on leadership with continued coding and delivery accountability.
• Strong full-stack fundamentals across modern frontend and backend.
• Proven ability to operate in high-ambiguity environments and ship results.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead the Forward Deployed Engineers team in your location.
• Work directly with customers to understand workflows and technical challenges.
• Prototype, design, and implement solutions with your team.
• Own projects from ideation through architecture to shipping and iteration.
• Set architectural standards and review code to raise the bar across the org.

Skills

Software engineering

Technical leadership

Hands-on coding

Frontend development

Backend development

Distributed systems

Customer-facing engineering

Architectural thinking

Product intuition

High-ambiguity environments

Tools

Golang

TypeScript

Rust

Terraform

Cloud platforms

Job description

TL;DR - We’re looking for an exceptional Forward Deployed Engineering Lead to help build the future of AI-powered software creation. You’ll build and lead an exceptional FDE team, while working alongside our other FDE leaders to shape how the function operates globally. You’ll remain deeply hands-on - working directly with our most ambitious customers, writing production code, and building alongside your team.

Why Lovable?

Lovable is the software creation platform that gives people the power to act on the problems closest to them. For decades, turning an idea into software required so much capital, technical fluency, and time that many ideas never came to life. Lovable is the counterargument: a platform for all people with ideas, ambition, and problems worth solving. From solopreneurs to small business owners to teams at companies like Adidas and Zendesk, people have built over 60 million projects on Lovable since its launch in November 2024. And we’re just getting started.

We’re building a generational company from Stockholm, with growing teams in London, Boston, New York, and San Francisco. Our team is small, talent-dense, and moving quickly, with a culture rooted in extreme ownership, high velocity, and low-ego collaboration. We look for people who care deeply, ship fast, and are eager to make a dent in the world.

Lovable is one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies and has been recognized on the Forbes AI 50 and CNBC Disruptor 50, reflecting our momentum as one of Europe’s fastest-growing AI companies and one of the most ambitious places to build in this next era of software.

What makes this role special?

You will:

• Build and lead the FDE team in your location
• Join a small group of FDE leaders defining how the function operates and scales globally
• Stay deeply hands-on - personally building and shipping alongside your team
• Partner with customers building never-seen-before AI systems
• Set a high technical bar across architecture, engineering, and execution
• Turn patterns from real deployments into core product and platform improvements
• Influence our product direction, technical roadmap, and how FDE works at Lovable

If you want to build an exceptional engineering team without stepping away from building yourself - this is that role.

What we’re looking for

• 12+ years across software engineering, technical architecture, and customer-facing engineering
• Experience leading and developing high-performing technical teams
• A track record of remaining deeply hands-on as your leadership scope has grown
• Strong full-stack engineering fundamentals across modern frontend and backend development
• Strong architectural thinking and familiarity with distributed systems
• Experience owning complex technical engagements end-to-end
• Exceptional product intuition and ability to work directly with users
• Ability to move comfortably between writing code, making architectural decisions, leading engineers, and working with senior customer stakeholders
• High agency and comfort operating in high-ambiguity, high-velocity environments

Bonus if you’ve

• Built a team or technical function from zero
• Worked on agentic AI systems or built with LLMs in production
• Led zero-to-one product development
• Worked in a founding or early-stage startup environment
• Worked across high-growth startups, big tech, consulting, or enterprise AI

What you’ll do

In one sentence: build the team that deploys intelligence into the real world - and deploy it alongside them.

• Recruit, develop, and lead an exceptional team of Forward Deployed Engineers
• Work directly with customers to understand their workflows, needs, and hardest technical problems
• Personally design, prototype, and implement solutions alongside your team
• Own and guide projects from idea - architecture - shipping - iteration
• Set the technical bar through architecture decisions, code reviews, and hands-on engineering
• Translate insights from customer deployments into foundational platform improvements
• Partner with other FDE leads to shape standards, playbooks, and how the function scales globally
• Contribute to core product strategy, technical decisions, and cultural foundations

Our Tech Stack

We choose tools that empower both humans and AI:

• Frontend: React, TypeScript
• Backend: Golang & Rust
• Cloud: Cloudflare, GCP, AWS, multiple LLM providers
• Tooling: GitHub Actions, OTEL, Grafana, Terraform, and more
• Always evolving with what works best

How we hire

1. Fill out a short form and hop on a brief intro call with our recruiting team

2. A technical leadership interview - how you build teams, set standards, and make technical decisions

3. Show us how you approach hard technical problems

4. Show us something you’ve built that makes you proud

5. Conversations with the leaders you’d work most closely with, followed by a final discussion