Forward Deployed Software Engineer

Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a premier talent firm that focuses on placing the best product managers, software, and hardware talent at innovative companies. Our team is 100% remote and we work with teams across the United States to help them hire.

Forward Deployed Software Engineer
Location

New York, NY (Hybrid - 3 Days per Week in Brooklyn Heights)

Up to 50% Travel to Customer Sites
Compensation

$125,000 - $185,000 Base + Competitive Equity
Visa

No Visa Sponsorship Available
Company Stage

Early-Stage AI Startup
Industry

AI, Enterprise Software, Applied AI, Forward Deployed Engineering, Industrial AI
About the Company

The company is building an AI-native enterprise platform that helps organizations modernize complex operational workflows across industries including construction, manufacturing, infrastructure, and government services.

Its platform combines large language models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), production data pipelines, machine learning, and modern software engineering to deliver highly customized AI solutions directly inside customer environments. Engineers work closely with customers to rapidly build, deploy, and iterate on mission-critical software solving real-world operational problems.

Founded by experienced operators with backgrounds at Palantir and backed by strong early customer traction, the company is rapidly scaling its engineering organization while maintaining a high engineering bar and an ownership-driven culture. Engineers own projects end-to-end-from customer discovery and backend architecture to AI workflows, frontend applications, and production deployment.

As a Forward Deployed Software Engineer, you'll work directly with customers to design, build, and deploy AI-powered software tailored to their operational needs while collaborating closely with implementation, product, and engineering teams.

This is a rare opportunity to join an early-stage AI company where every engineer directly shapes customer outcomes, product direction, and engineering culture while solving meaningful real-world problems across industries.
What You'll Do

• Own customer deployments from technical discovery through production rollout
• Design and build production-grade data pipelines integrating disparate customer systems
• Build AI-powered workflows leveraging LLMs, RAG, and prompt engineering
• Design scalable backend services supporting customer-specific applications
• Develop modern React applications tailored to customer workflows
• Build and optimize AI evaluation pipelines for production use cases
• Design APIs and backend architecture supporting enterprise deployments
• Work closely with customers to understand business requirements and rapidly prototype solutions
• Apply machine learning and data science techniques to unstructured enterprise data
• Monitor production systems, improve reliability, and resolve mission-critical issues
• Partner closely with Implementation Leads to deliver successful customer outcomes
• Own end-to-end technical delivery across the full software stack

Ideal Candidate Background
Experience Requirements

• 1-5 years of experience as a Software Engineer building production applications
• Experience building customer-facing software products
• Experience working in structured engineering environments such as FAANG, Epic Systems, or similar organizations
• Demonstrated experience working on cross-functional, entrepreneurial, or zero-to-one initiatives
• Experience owning technical projects from concept through deployment
• Experience collaborating directly with customers or business stakeholders preferred
• Startup experience strongly preferred
• Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments

Technical Requirements

• Strong software engineering fundamentals
• Strong React development experience
• Experience building production backend services and APIs
• Hands-on experience with LLM orchestration and production AI applications
• Deep understanding of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures
• Experience designing AI workflows using prompt engineering
• Familiarity with production data pipelines and data integration
• Comfortable contributing across frontend, backend, AI, and infrastructure systems
• Strong debugging, testing, and software engineering best practices
• Experience using AI coding tools and modern developer workflows

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field required
• GPA above 3.5 strongly preferred (or strong explanation for lower GPA)
• Strong computer science fundamentals required

Soft Skills

• Strong product mindset
• High ownership mentality
• Excellent communication skills
• Comfortable working directly with customers
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity
• Self-directed and proactive
• Bias toward execution
• Startup mentality
• Low ego and highly collaborative
• Entrepreneurial mindset

Preferred Backgrounds

• Palantir
• Epic Systems
• Meta
• Early-stage AI startups
• Enterprise AI startups
• Applied AI companies
• Manufacturing software companies
• Construction technology companies
• Industrial software companies
• Forward Deployed Engineering organizations
• Product engineering teams
• Engineers building AI-powered enterprise products

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary: $125,000 - $185,000
• Competitive Equity Package
• Direct collaboration with founders and customers
• Significant ownership over customer implementations
• Opportunity to build AI-powered enterprise solutions
• High-impact engineering role
• Exposure to cutting-edge AI development workflows
• Rapid career growth opportunities
• Hybrid collaboration with a high-performing engineering team

Why Join

This is an opportunity to build AI-powered software that solves meaningful operational challenges across industries including manufacturing, construction, and government.

You'll own customer solutions from backend infrastructure through frontend experiences while working directly with customers, founders, and AI technologies to deliver production systems solving high-impact real-world problems.

As an early Forward Deployed Software Engineer, you'll have outsized influence on customer success, engineering culture, product direction, and the evolution of AI-powered enterprise software.