# Forward Deployed Engineer > Raydar · San Francisco, United States · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-12 **Salary:** USD 220,000–320,000 **Workplace:** on_site ## Description About the company Our client is a fast-growing software company. The role Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Work as a hands-on engineer embedded with large business customers, owning technical deployment and ongoing success after the sale. Split time between building custom tooling, supporting pre-sales technical evaluations and acting as a bridge between customers and internal product and engineering teams. This is a founding role in a newly created function. What you'll do \- Support sales colleagues before the sale by running technical evaluations, building demo applications and helping win competitive bake-offs. \- Own technical success for a small set of enterprise accounts, meeting with customers regularly to resolve issues, deepen adoption and open up expansion. \- Build whatever the customer needs, from an evaluation app to a tailored agent or changes to an existing product surface. \- Develop strong relationships with customer stakeholders, especially technical ones. \- Create diagnostics, dashboards and evaluation harnesses to measure performance and catch regressions across environments. \- Relay usability gaps, unmet needs and opportunities back to product and engineering teams. \- Work directly with founders and customers to help shape product direction and engineering strategy. ## Requirements What we're looking for \- Several years of hands-on experience taking software live in production environments, ideally for customers with demanding or regulated requirements. \- A background at a well-regarded early-stage company, delivering working software to business clients. \- Strong Python proficiency, with the ability to work in Bash and infrastructure as needed. \- Fluency with AI-assisted coding tools and a solid grasp of LLM and machine learning concepts. \- Comfort leading technical discussions on customer calls, with clear and polished communication. \- A quantitative, hands-on approach: able to debug, experiment and iterate quickly across the full development lifecycle. \- A high bar for quality, strong ownership and the agency to step in and fix problems rather than only flag them. \- Willingness to build your own small tools, such as a quick app to test a hypothesis or assemble a dataset. Bonus points \- Founding experience or early-stage product building. \- Prior experience in a forward-deployed role supporting large customers. \- Ability to design and run evaluations. \- Comfort acting as both a backend-leaning engineer and a customer-facing lead. \- Up-to-date knowledge of developments in ML and AI. \- Degree from a top-tier university. ## Benefits Compensation and benefits \- Base salary: USD 220,000 to 320,000 per year \- Equity \- Health, dental and vision coverage \- Parental leave \- Flexible time off \- Wellness benefits Location and work model \- San Francisco, CA, United States \- On-site, 5 days per week in office \- Full-time ## Apply [Apply at Raydar](https://apply.workable.com/raydar/j/7BAFB8771B/apply) --- Powered by [Workable](https://www.workable.com)