Founding AI-Driven Forward Deployed Engineer (Remote)

Ladders; United States; Remote; USD 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

ESPP 15% discount

Health benefits

Paid vacation & company days off

Floating holidays

Family leave coverage

Employee Resource Groups

Job summary

Ladders is seeking a Founding Forward Deployed Engineer for a remote US-based role. You will bridge customer needs, product development, and applied AI to shape intelligent solutions in education, government, and non-profit sectors.

You’ll define workflows, identify automation opportunities, and translate field insights into scalable enhancements. As a founding team member, you’ll help shape the operating model, culture, and execution rhythms for the function, collaborating with stakeholders and

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and maintaining full-stack software products.
• Experience with agentic AI systems and LLM-powered applications in production.
• Strong customer-centric focus with excellent communication skills.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity and make high-stakes decisions with partial information.
• Rapid prototyping skills and iteration from feedback.
• Proficiency in frontend (React, TypeScript) and backend (Next.js, TypeScript).
• Strong background in systems architecture and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Define operational rituals and create internal playbooks for the FDE team.
• Map complex learning and development workflows and identify opportunities for AI integration with enterprise customers.
• Design and deploy custom AI agents that work seamlessly with customer systems.
• Translate customer insights into scalable platform enhancements.
• Manage the entire product lifecycle from discovery to deployment and optimization.
• Shape the culture and operational practices of the founding FDE team.

Skills

Full-stack software

Agentic AI systems

Customer-centric

Ambiguity handling

Rapid prototyping

React/TypeScript

Next.js/TypeScript

Distributed systems

Systems architecture

Tools

React

TypeScript

Next.js

Job description

Ladders is seeking a Founding Forward Deployed Engineer for a remote US-based role. You will bridge customer needs, product development, and applied AI to shape intelligent solutions in education, government, and non-profit sectors.

You’ll define workflows, identify automation opportunities, and translate field insights into scalable enhancements. As a founding team member, you’ll help shape the operating model, culture, and execution rhythms for the function, collaborating with stakeholders and