Forward Deployed Engineer

About the Role

When a staffing firm or high-volume employer signs with Onboarded, the contract is the starting line. Their compliance work has to run, and run right: I-9 and E-Verify, background checks, state and federal forms, tax credits, union agreements, credentials. Every customer's version is different. We're looking for engineers to embed with our direct customers and build those workflows end to end.

You'll be embedded in two or three strategic customer accounts at a time. You learn how their hiring actually works across states, worker types and systems, then build it on Onboarded: forms as code, policies, automations, and integrations to their ATS, HRIS and payroll. You own the build from first discovery through go-live, and you answer for how fast the customer goes live and whether the work is right. Sales opens the account. Customer Engineering supports it at steady state. You build in the middle.

Onboarded is the API for the workflows that have to be right. We never built I-9 as a feature. We built primitives, and every customer build turns implementation into code we reuse. What you build for one customer becomes a package for the next, and what you learn in the field shapes the roadmap.

We're casting a wide net. Maybe you've been a forward deployed engineer at an AI or data company, a solutions engineer who writes real code, an integration engineer, or a founder. What matters is that you ship production-quality code, you're energized by messy customer problems, and you use AI as a force multiplier.

What You'll Do

• Embed with strategic customers. Work alongside their HR, operations, legal and IT teams. Map how a worker goes from hired to ready to work across their systems, states and worker types, and find where it breaks.
• Build compliance workflows as code. Implement each customer's requirements on Onboarded's primitives: forms, policies, entities, automations and integrations. Versioned, reviewed, and deployed across every entity they run.
• Connect the customer's stack. Integrate Onboarded with their ATS, HRIS, payroll and screening vendors through our REST API, webhooks and MCP surfaces. Own the data model, the auth, and how records stay in sync.
• Ship to production and own the outcome. Take each workflow from discovery to go-live. Monitor it, fix what breaks, and stand behind it when an auditor asks how it works.
• Turn every build into something reusable. Every workflow you deliver should make the next one faster. Generalize what you build into packages and tooling the whole team uses, including AI agents that write configuration.
• Bring the field back to product. Write clear specs for the gaps the core platform should close, prioritize hard, and be the first person to test what ships.

What We're Looking For

• A builder who ships. 3+ years writing production code in a modern stack (TypeScript, Python or similar), or a track record shipping real systems as a founder. You get productive in an unfamiliar codebase fast.
• Real integration skills. APIs, webhooks, authentication, data models, and keeping records in sync across systems you didn't build. You've made other people's systems work together at scale.
• Customer-facing by choice. You can run discovery with an HR director in the morning and debug a payroll sync with their IT team in the afternoon. You earn trust by delivering.
• Precision that holds up. Compliance work cannot be wrong. You know the difference between fast and right, and you deliver both.
• AI-first operator. You use AI tools to write code, generate configuration, analyze requirements and prototype. This is non-negotiable.
• Product judgment. You can take "we need it to do X" from a customer, find what they actually need, and come back with a crisp build or a clear no.

Experience in staffing, ATS or HRIS software, payroll, or employment compliance (I-9, E-Verify, background checks, tax forms) is a strong signal but not required. Learning velocity and an AI-first approach to closing the gap count just as much.

This role is not a fit for someone who wants a ticket queue, or who wants to write code far from the people who use it. It is for engineers who want to own the outcome and see their work run in the real world.

Why This Role

• Your code puts people to work. Every workflow you ship decides whether a real person starts their job on time and compliantly. The stakes are real and so is the impact.
• You'll build next to the people who built the engine. Our CTO and founders own customer accounts too. You'll have a direct line to them, Product and Engineering, and your field work shapes what the platform becomes.
• There is a clear growth path. As we add strategic accounts, this role can grow into leading a team of Forward Deployed Engineers, moving into core platform engineering, or owning a product area.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and equity in a fast-growing startup
• Health, dental, vision, and retirement benefits
• Remote-first culture with optional in-person collaboration
• A chance to build the workflows that have to be right, for some of the largest employers and staffing firms in the country

How to Apply

Send a short introduction + your resume, LinkedIn or GitHub to View email address on aiapply.co. Include how you use AI tools in your day-to-day work, and one story about something you built inside a customer's environment: what was messy, what you built, and what it changed. Bonus points if you tell us how you'd decide whether a customer request should be a one-off configuration or a reusable package.