Forward Deployed Engineer

Salary: USD 170,000 – USD 220,000 per annum + Equity, Benefits, PTO, 401(K). Forward Deployed Engineer (AI Infrastructure) $170,000 – $220,000 + Equity + Benefits + PTO San Francisco, CA – Onsite Are you an engineer who loves solving complex, real‑world problems directly with customers? Do you want to work hands‑on deploying cutting‑edge AI infrastructure used by developers and enterprises around the world, whilst continuing to develop both your technical and client‑facing skillsets. This is an opportunity to join a fast‑growing, profitable startup at the forefront of AI infrastructure, building the compliance and reliability layer that enterprise customers like Adobe, Netflix, and NASA depend on in production. Backed by top‑tier investors, the team has built the world's most widely used LLM Gateway - a unified platform that gives developers secure, scalable access to every major LLM provider. Founded in 2023 and already profitable with $2.5M ARR (targeting $10M by mid‑2026), the company is looking for its first Forward Deployed Engineer, someone who thrives at the intersection of customer success, engineering, and systems design. You’ll work closely with customers to deploy, optimize, and troubleshoot the platform in production environments while shaping the product roadmap based on real‑world insights. You’ll operate as a key technical partner to clients, ensuring smooth integrations, rapid debugging, and performance tuning across infrastructure, backend, and frontend layers. Expect deep technical ownership, customer‑facing impact, and the chance to build the foundation of a company defining AI interoperability. If you want to join a tight‑knit, high‑caliber team where your code and customer instincts both matter, whilst continuing to develop your skillsets. The Role Own the support queue, working through high volumes of customer tickets to drive successful outcomes at pace. Diagnose and resolve complex technical issues across the platform, solving for root cause rather than surface-level symptoms. Reproduce customer issues across their specific environments, configurations, and integrations. Submit pull requests for bug fixes and improvements, contributing directly to the codebase where needed. Act as the technical voice of the customer, feeding real‑world insights back to product and engineering. The Person 1+ years of experience with production‑grade backend systems and developer tooling. Strong in Python; familiarity with FastAPI, REST APIs, and LLM frameworks a plus. Obsessed with root cause (digs deep into problems rather than applying surface‑level fixes). Strong communicator who thrives in high‑volume, customer‑facing environments. Metrics‑driven and hardworking, comfortable operating with high autonomy in a fast‑moving team. Happy to work on‑site in San Francisco. #J-18808-Ljbffr