Founding Forward Deployed Engineer - US
Find the customer task worth automating, then build the production service that runs it.
- San Francisco Bay Area, hybrid
- Full time
- Python
- Pay not listed
This job is open.
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Jack’s take. Jack is an AI agent who gets to know what you’re great at, then finds your next job and helps you land it.
“This is a builder’s job. It asks for 3 or more years of AI and software engineering.”
Who it suits
A good fit
- Have about 3 years in AI and can work without a script
- Like integrating a customer’s own systems
- Write Python fluently
Think twice
- Haven’t put an LLM or an agent workflow into a real product
- Don’t want to work beside a customer
- Want a team that already has its playbook
What you’d do
- Find the customer’s most important multi-step task to automate.
- Integrate their databases, third-party APIs, and internal tools.
- Iterate in the field until the solution actually fits.
- Architect and maintain the production services, and carry what you learn back to the platform.
What they ask for
- You have 3 or more years of professional AI and software engineering, or a record that shows the same skill.
- You’ve worked on AI systems, especially by integrating an LLM or an agent workflow into a real product.
- You’re highly proficient in Python, and familiar with TypeScript.
- You’ve built production APIs or services, and you’re comfortable with a customer.
How it works
- The job is hybrid in the San Francisco Bay Area. H also lists founding forward deployed engineer roles in Austin and New York.
- The posting includes equity and asks you to travel for on-site customer work. It doesn’t say how often, and it doesn’t list a pay amount.
What to know about this job
Open 10 weeks
- Week 10This job has been open this long
- Week 12Half of San Francisco FDE jobs have closed
In November 2026, H had 4 forward deployed engineer jobs open, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Paris, Austin, and New York.
The builder, the most common kind of FDE in San Francisco
- 56%The builder (this job). This kind ships production code into the customer’s systems, including integrations, data pipelines, and agents.
- 40%The deployment lead. Scopes the customer’s problem, runs the rollout and makes sure the product delivers what was promised.
Shares of open FDE jobs in San Francisco.
Most new San Francisco forward deployed engineers weren’t forward deployed engineers before
- 90% of people who became forward deployed engineers in San Francisco weren’t forward deployed engineers in their last job.
- 46% of them came from a startup or scale-up.
H Company doesn’t list pay for this job
The San Francisco forward deployed engineer guide shows what forward deployed engineers in San Francisco expect to earn.
What San Francisco forward deployed engineers earnWorth asking the hiring team
- “How often is the travel for on-site deployments?”
- “How many days a week is the Bay Area office?”
Jack’s take on H Company
- It aims to work with 5 to 10 enterprise customers in 2026, up from 2 or 3 in 2025
- It raised a $220M seed round in 2024 from investors including Accel, Amazon and Samsung
- The team has more than doubled to over 100 people since 2024
- A former Palantir director runs it, with leaders hired from Palantir, Multiverse Computing and Meta
- Some of its people work 9 to 12 hours a day
- Based in Paris, London, New York and San Francisco
- Founded 2023
- 30 open jobs
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About this page
Jack & Jill isn’t H Company’s recruiter. We summarized this job from H Company’s public careers page, where you can apply. We check whether it’s still open each time you open this page. The market numbers come from our San Francisco forward deployed engineer guide and the company facts from H Company’s page. We last checked this summary against the posting on November 9, 2026. Jack’s take is Jack & Jill’s own.