Forward Deployed Engineer - Applied AI
Forward Deployed AI Engineer works directly with customers to identify pain points, builds and deploys AI-powered solutions and automations (50% coding), and drives business impact through rapid iteration. Requires Python/JavaScript proficiency, AI tool experience, and founder-like ownership in an in-person environment.
About the job
What You’ll Do
- Work directly with users and internal teams to identify high-leverage problems and ship product solutions.
- Write production code (approximately 50% of your time) and ship weekly improvements across the customer journey.
- Use tools like Widesurf, Cursor, and other AI accelerators to increase your velocity and quality of output.
- Build and deploy AI-powered tooling that eliminates manual effort and improves the experience for providers, parents, and government partners.
- Automate onboarding flows, proposal generation, reporting processes, and other operational workflows.
- Own full loops: talk to users, design solutions, write code, test, deploy, and monitor adoption.
- Prioritize based on business impact and collaborate across teams to drive measurable results.
What Success Looks Like
- Uncover user pain points faster than anyone else and consistently ship solutions that address them.
- Deploy AI-infused internal tools or product experiences that improve core metrics (conversion, retention, revenue).
- Fully own feedback loops, from discovery to deployment, and iterate rapidly.
- Internal teams rely on your tools to operate faster and with fewer resources.
- Moving fast, staying close to the customer, and operating with very little hand-holding.
Who You Are
- A builder and founder at heart, you’ve started a company, built products that got users, or made revenue independently.
- Comfortable talking to users weekly and distilling insight into product decisions.
- Technical enough to ship production code on your own, experience with Python, JavaScript, or similar languages.
- Experienced using AI/LLMs and developer tools like Windsurf and Cursor to move faster and smarter.
- Business-minded, you’ve worked in consulting, managed a P&L, or attended business school and know how to prioritize based on ROI.
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity and energized by a high-trust, high-impact, in-person environment.
Skills
Python, JavaScript, AI, LLMs, Cursor, Windsurf, Widesurf
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