Founding Forward-Deployed Engineer: Data & Platform Lead

XDOF; San Mateo (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

XDOF in San Mateo, CA is hiring its founding Forward Deployed Engineer. You will embed with strategic customers, translating their model and data needs into concrete collection, annotation, and delivery specs, and ensure the data we ship actually moves their model performance.

As the single technical owner for a portfolio of accounts, you’ll sit at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development, helping define our forward‑deployed motion as we scale, while growing with the

Qualifications

• 5+ years of engineering experience.
• Founding-engineer profile preferred.
• Strong production coding experience (Python).
• Experience shipping and operating data pipelines or infrastructure.
• Excellent communication and low ego.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end delivery for a set of strategic customers: scope requirements, sequence delivery, QA before shipping, and clear blockers.
• Be the first technical responder for your accounts: triage questions, manage timelines, and elevate only what genuinely needs it.
• Represent XDOF's technical depth to sophisticated customers while protecting proprietary methodology.
• Close the loop: turn recurring customer needs into input for our data-engine, pipeline, and annotation roadmaps, and codify what works into reusable playbooks.
• Grow the motion: as the role matures, lead platform-integration engagements and model fine-tuning/evaluation services for enterprise customers.

Skills

Python

Customer-facing

Data pipelines

Communication

Job description

XDOF in San Mateo, CA is hiring its founding Forward Deployed Engineer. You will embed with strategic customers, translating their model and data needs into concrete collection, annotation, and delivery specs, and ensure the data we ship actually moves their model performance.

As the single technical owner for a portfolio of accounts, you’ll sit at the intersection of customer delivery and core platform development, helping define our forward‑deployed motion as we scale, while growing with the