Founding Engineer / Forward Deployed / Golang

Herndon, VirginiaHybridDirect Hire$180k - $200kAn early-stage AI company in Herndon, VA is hiring a Founding Forward Deployed Software Engineer for a full-time position. This is a hybrid opportunity requiring three days per week onsite. You’ll work across backend engineering, cloud infrastructure, and customer deployments using Go, Python, Kubernetes, AWS, and PostgreSQL.This role sits directly between the engineering team and the customers using the platform. Rather than simply handing requirements to another team, you’ll work with customers to understand their technical environments and production challenges, then design and build the functionality needed to solve them. You’ll remain a core product engineer while getting direct exposure to how sophisticated organizations are actually deploying AI in production. It’s a great fit for an engineer who enjoys ambiguous problems, customer interaction, and owning solutions from the initial conversation through production. Required Skills & Experience 7+ years of software engineering experience Strong backend development experience with Go and/or Python Production experience with Kubernetes and AWS Experience building and deploying distributed systems Experience owning software from development through production Strong communication and customer-facing skills Ability to gather technical requirements and turn them into scalable software Comfortable troubleshooting complex production environments Desired Skills & Experience Previous forward deployed or customer-facing engineering experience Experience working in startup or fast-paced engineering environments Experience with PostgreSQL Background in infrastructure, platform engineering, or developer tooling Experience with observability and production reliability Exposure to AI/ML infrastructure or MLOps What You Will Be Doing Tech Breakdown35% Backend Software Engineering 25% Kubernetes / Cloud Infrastructure 20% Customer Integrations & Deployments 10% Production Reliability 10% Data / PostgreSQLDaily Responsibilities60% Hands On 30% Customer & Team Collaboration 10% Technical Leadership The Offer Competitive base salary Bonus eligible Meaningful equityApplicants must be currently authorized to work in the US on a full-time basis now and in the future.