Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

Glean; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, vision, and dental coverage

Generous time-off policy

401(k) contributions

Home-office improvement stipend

Annual education and wellness stipends

Job summary

Glean is seeking a founding member for its forward-deployed team in New York City. The role involves building next-generation product surfaces, analyzing business pain points, and working closely with engineering and product teams. Candidates should have strong programming skills and a track record in technical roles, ideally with AI-powered solutions. The position offers a hybrid work model and travel requirements of 25-50%. A competitive salary range of $160,000–$270,000 is offered along with comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• 4+ years in technical roles with a track record of shipping production software.
• Experience producing software from scratch in ambiguous environments.
• Ability to diagnose business problems and connect them to product hypotheses.

Responsibilities

• Discover and build Glean’s next product surfaces with no predefined scope.
• Lead deep opportunity discovery by analyzing business pain points.
• Act as a technical partner to C-suite executives, explaining designs and risks.
• Work closely with engineering and product teams to shape platform capabilities.

Skills

Product creation

AI-powered solutions

Full-stack programming skills

Business acumen

Communication skills

Education

Technical degree in Computer Science or a related field

Job description

About Glean

Glean is a Work AI platform that helps organizations work smarter with AI, providing intelligent search, AI assistants, and scalable AI agents across enterprise systems.

About The Role

You will join Glean’s forward‑deployed team as a founding member, working autonomously to discover and build next‑generation product surfaces. The role involves identifying the biggest unsolved business problems at strategic customers, designing and shipping entirely new products that solve those problems, and scaling successful solutions globally.

• Discover and build Glean’s next product surfaces: 0‑to‑1 product creation with no predefined scope.
• Lead deep opportunity discovery: analyze business pain points, formulate hypotheses, and validate with customers.
• Act as a technical partner to the C‑suite: earn trust with executives and technical teams, explaining design, risks, and value.
• Scale what works: make solutions repeatable and scalable in partnership with core R&D.
• Stay at the frontier: work closely with Glean’s engineering and product teams to shape platform capabilities.

About You

• Think like a founder, curious about business, and able to ship products that drive real outcomes.
• Have a 0‑to‑1 build track record, having produced software from scratch in ambiguous environments.
• Experience shipping AI‑powered solutions in production, including prompt engineering, agent development, and deployment at scale.
• Possess full‑stack technical depth and strong programming skills across the stack.
• Show business acumen: diagnose problems and connect them to product hypotheses without a brief.
• Build trust quickly at all organizational levels, communicating clearly and adapting depth to the audience.
• Own builder’s judgment: understand what is buildable, estimate timelines, and simplify scope for rapid production.
• Be curious and scrappy, finding paths forward when none are obvious.
• Have 4+ years in technical roles and a track record of shipping production software; former technical founders strongly encouraged.
• Be willing to travel 25–50% of the time.
• Nice to Have: founder experience, a technical degree in CS or related field, deep familiarity with LLMs and retrieval systems, and experience driving enterprise technology adoption.

Location

• Hybrid: 3–4 days per week in our NYC office.
• Requires 25–50% travel.

Compensation & Benefits

The annual base salary range for this position is $160,000–$270,000, depending on location, level, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and additional benefits. We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, vision, and dental coverage, a generous time‑off policy, 401(k) contributions, a home‑office improvement stipend, and annual education and wellness stipends.

EEO Statement

We are a diverse bunch of people and we want to continue to attract and retain a diverse range of people into our organization. We are committed to an inclusive and diverse company. We do not discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, civil or family status, age, disability, or race.