# Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

**Company:** [Sphere](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/sphere)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Solutions Architecture
**Skills:** Python, Django, React, Customer Integrations, Technical Prds, Transaction Data, Billing Systems, Compliance Systems
**Posted:** 2026-04-15

> Embeds with strategic customers to understand cross-border compliance workflows, builds custom features and integrations on the Sphere platform, and bridges customer needs to the engineering roadmap. Defines forward-deployed processes in early-stage AI trade compliance startup.

## Job Description

## What You'll Do

### Enablement
- Onboard customers pre-contract, get accounts functional in Sphere
- Navigate customer billing system integrations
- Pull and interpret liability reports, help customers understand exposure
- Guide clients through the complexity of understanding and managing their global tax liability
- Guide customers through VAT ID collection, address hygiene, and regional compliance

### Monetization
- Bridge between customer needs and the engineering roadmap
- Be entrenched with the customer by ensuring Sphere is integral to all of the company’s revenue compliance needs
- Research new compliance requirements (e-invoicing, input tax, etc.) end to end
- Identify patterns across customers - what custom work is being requested repeatedly
- Scope and write tight technical PRDs/proposals ready to hand to core engineering
- Build custom features and integrations on top of the Sphere platform for key accounts
- Identify custom builds that could be scaled and deployed across all customers as new features or products

## Requirements
- Experience in an FDE or customer-facing engineering role
- Experience executing and shipping bespoke customer features, end-to-end
- Ownership. Takes a problem from ambiguous to shipped without being told how, keeps the customer outcome in sight the whole way, and doesn't drop threads
- Relentlessly curious. You don't wait to be pointed at the answer - you go find it, and you know when to pull in someone who knows more than you
- Strong communication skills. We work at an extremely fast pace, so clear, concise communication is essential
- Customer obsession. You’re going to be talking to a lot of people in the finance realm (Controller, Heads of Finance, Heads of Tax). You need to like them and obsess over them
- Very strong attention to detail. When you work with numbers, this is a non-negotiable - it’s not enough to be 99% right

## Nice to Haves
- Experience working with large volumes of transaction data
- Experience in **Python** and **Django**. Our core application backend and data pipeline services are built with Python and Django
- Experience with **React**. Our entire front end is built in React

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**Apply:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/fd4ef732-8728-487a-8ff6-88166930d1cb
**Canonical:** https://hotfix.jobs/jobs/fd4ef732-8728-487a-8ff6-88166930d1cb