Head of Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)

Head of Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE)

Location: San Francisco
Reports To: VP of Revenue

OTE: $215,000 - $285,000

About Us

Rime builds voice AI for enterprises running customer experiences at scale. Our text-to-speech models are purpose-built for high-volume conversational deployments, engineered for the pronunciation accuracy, latency, and deployment flexibility that production environments actually demand.

We started from a different premise than the rest of the field: voice AI isn't bottlenecked by model architecture. It's bottlenecked by data. So before we trained a single model, we built our own corpus: full-duplex, studio-quality conversational speech, recorded and annotated by PhD linguists. That's our moat. It's also why enterprises pick Rime when pilots need to convert into production.

We're backed by top-tier investors including Unusual Ventures, and we've built a team at the intersection of product, research, and craft. Building voice models is an art. We intend to master it.

The Role

We're looking for a Head of Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) to operate as a technical closer and rapid builder at the intersection of sales, product, and engineering. You'll own the full technical customer lifecycle: pre-sales, POC, implementation, and post-launch expansion.

This is not a traditional solutions engineer role. You'll act as a skunkworks engineer, working directly with the sales team to design and build custom prototypes, integrations, and production-ready systems that unlock high-value enterprise and ISV deals.

You'll move fast, operate with high autonomy, and turn ambiguous customer needs into working software - often in days, not weeks. The most impactful work will evolve into repeatable solutions and eventually productized features on our platform.

What You'll Do

• Be a technical closer. You're in the room for every strategic deal - not to present slides, but to build what it takes to win.
• Deploy frontier models into production. Get your hands dirty with real integrations, real infrastructure, and real customer environments at some of the largest companies in the world.
• Own the POC end-to-end. Design, build, and ship production-quality proof-of-concepts - frontend, backend, integrations - fast.
• Own the customer relationship technically . Manage technical stakeholders from first demo through go-live and expansion. Pre-sales and post-sales are yours.
• Turn what you build into product. Patterns you identify across deals go upstream - you're a direct input to the roadmap.
• Build and lead the team. Hire and develop the CE function after proven success, shaping how technical pre-sales and post-sales coverage evolves as we scale.

Who You Are

• A builder who wants to be customer-facing. You're most comfortable when you're writing code and in the room with the customer - not choosing between the two.
• 6+ years in software engineering, solutions engineering, or a hybrid role - you've shipped production code and worked directly with customers.
• Full-stack capable. You can ship clean, production-quality systems quickly and aren't precious about the stack.
• Deeply comfortable with APIs, SDKs, and cloud infrastructure in live customer environments.
• Energized by ambiguity. You thrive when requirements are half-formed, the timeline is short, and the stakes are high.
• A sharp communicator who goes deep with engineers and clearly frames business value for executives.
• Done waiting on the sidelines. You want ownership, impact, and a seat at the table.

Nice to Have

• Experience with voice AI, TTS, speech, or real-time systems
• Background working with ISVs, platforms, or developer ecosystems
• Familiarity with WebRTC, streaming, or low-latency systems

Why Join Rime

• Rime is an AI lab - you're working alongside the researchers and engineers building frontier voice ai models.
• Direct exposure to how frontier AI gets built and deployed at scale, across some of the most demanding industries in the world.
• Competitive compensation with meaningful equity and real performance upside - we want to build a small, high-performing team that has real ownership.

At Rime, we...

• Are outliers
• Cut through the hype to focus on the craft
• Move fast with agency and freedom
• Maintain a growth mindset, finding joy in the struggle
• Do the right things, knowing that it'll lead to making money
  If that sounds like you too, you'll be a great fit for Rime!