Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Principal Forward Deployed Engineer

Maybern is building the operating system for agentic fund management, and Forward Deployed Engineering is where that meets the real world. Our FDE team partners directly with some of the largest private funds on the planet to build sophisticated applications that extend the Maybern platform: production AI, decision support, forecasting, optimization, scenario analysis, formalized workflow logic, and high-assurance automation.

This is not a someday roadmap. We have signed engagements running today and more closing behind them. The Principal FDE will be our most senior client-facing technical leader, sitting at the intersection of technical solutioning, customer leadership, and delivery management. You will sit across the table from CFOs and managing partners who are racing to automate their firms with AI, translate ambiguous, high-stakes problems into structured proposals, lead engagements end-to-end, and set the technical bar for a practice you'll help build and hire. Compensation is designed for outperformance: competitive base, meaningful equity, and a tiered performance bonus where top performers can earn up to 35%.

What You'll Do

• Lead early-stage discovery with the most senior people in private markets, translating ambiguous and sometimes contradictory needs into structured proposals, and scoping engagements across AI, forecasting, automation, decision support, and platform integration
• Own senior client relationships end-to-end, from initial discovery through production adoption, managing scope, timeline, and expectations along the way
• Architect production-grade AI systems that clients run their business on, not demos: agentic workflows, extraction and automation over messy real-world data, evals, optimization, simulation, and decision support, in collaboration with the engineering team
• Support the sales motion by lending technical credibility to pre-sales conversations and helping shape and close new engagements
• Build the practice: establish a repeatable solutioning and scoping playbook, mentor engineers across the team, help hire the bench beneath you, and identify when bespoke customer work should become reusable product capability

Who You Are

• Executive Presence: You are comfortable in the room with senior, non-technical clients. You listen well, ask sharp questions, earn trust quickly, and push back when needed without losing the relationship.
• Solution Architect & Proposal Writer: You can take a vague client problem, structure it into a credible technical plan, and author a written proposal from scratch: framing the problem, the approach, the deliverables, and the value.
• Delivery Leader: You have led end-to-end engagements with meaningful complexity, owning scope, timeline, and outcomes across both technical and client-facing work streams.
• Builder of Real AI: You think past the happy path. You care about how a system behaves when the data is messy, how errors get caught, and how AI holds up when someone else's business depends on it.
• Driven by Outcomes: You are competitive, high-ownership, and motivated by impact and upside. You think in terms of the ROI of your work, not just the deliverable.
• This role is based in New York, with roughly 25% travel for client engagements

This Could Be a Great Fit If You Have…

• 10+ years of customer-facing technical experience in consulting, enterprise software, or forward-deployed engineering, with a strong track record leading ambiguous client initiatives from discovery through delivery
• Deep strength in Python, SQL, system design, and analytical application architecture, with hands-on experience taking AI systems to production, including agentic workflows and evaluation frameworks
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to write proposals, scope complex engagements, and manage difficult client situations

Bonus Points if You Have…

• Hands-on experience with the Snowflake AI Data Platform as a starting point for architecting data, analytics, and AI workflows
• Experience in finance, private markets, capital markets, fund administration, or enterprise decision systems
• Experience with optimization, probabilistic systems, simulation engines, or mathematical modeling platforms
• Experience turning bespoke client systems into reusable product or platform primitives
• Experience building or growing a small forward-deployed or professional services team

Benefits

• We offer a competitive salary + equity package, comprehensive benefits, and a flexible family-friendly work environment. Some of our perks include:
• Comprehensive healthcare benefits
• Maybern covers 100% of medical, dental, and vision premiums
• HSA & FSA plans
• Family-Friendly policies
• Paid parental leave
• Flexible schedule
• Flexible PTO / sick leave
• WFH as needed to fit your needs
• 401k