Job description

Forward Deployed Engineer – AI & Engineering Automation Full-time | On-site | SoHo, New York City, NY $200,000–$300,000 base salary depending on experience, plus founding equity About This Role We are looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer with 5–10 years of experience to embed directly inside acquired engineering firms, own the full arc from discovery to shipped software, and build the relationships that make AI adoption actually stick. This is a true FDE role, not solutions architecture or ticket-taking. You'll have real agency to identify problems, build the tools, and drive outcomes end-to-end at acquired firms. What Will You Be Doing? • Embed on-site at acquired engineering firms, sit beside their staff, earn their trust, and identify the highest-leverage workflows to automate. • Own the full deployment lifecycle: discovery, build, ship, debug in production, and iterate live with real users. • Exercise strong product judgment by distilling noisy user feedback into a clear opinion on what to build and what not to build. • Own the user relationship end-to-end, running working sessions and driving scope growth independently. • Feed every on-site lesson back into a compounding platform so wins at one firm become leverage across all acquisitions. Key Requirements • 5+ years of full-stack product engineering experience with demonstrated customer-facing or forward-deployed work. • Strong English fluency and the communication poise to earn trust with non-technical users on their turf. • Willing to travel Monday–Thursday, 2–3 weeks/month during the first 100 days post-acquisition. • Proven product instincts. You can translate user pain into a clear build decision and ship it without hand-holding. • At least one strong signal: recognizable early-stage startup experience (Seed–Series C) OR top technical education. Experience 5–10 years of experience in full-stack, forward-deployed, or customer-facing engineering. Compensation • Base Salary: $200,000–$300,000 depending on experience • Equity: 0.1%–0.75% with anti-dilution protection at platform acquisition Visa Sponsorship Visa sponsorship is available. • Open to visa transfers, including OPT and H-1B transfers. • Open to new visa sponsorship, including H-1B and TN. Location & Work Arrangement • Full-time position • 5 days in-office in SoHo, New York City, NY • Purpose-driven travel to acquired engineering firms • Travel Monday–Thursday, 2–3 weeks/month during the first 100 days following an acquisition Tech Stack Next.js, Vercel, Tailwind CSS, Kotlin, Python, AWS, Pulumi, LLMs, RAG, Agent Frameworks, LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI APIs, Document Parsing, Browser Automation, and AEC Software Integrations. About the Company This is an AI holding company on a mission to radically transform the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry by acquiring civil, structural, and MEP engineering firms and modernizing them with applied AI. Backed by a leading venture capital firm with approximately $5M in seed funding , the company embeds forward-deployed engineers directly inside acquired firms to identify high-leverage workflows and ship purpose-built AI tools in weeks, not quarters. The company's core thesis is that 85% of what engineers do today is theoretically automatable, yet less than 5% has been touched by AI, representing one of the largest automation gaps of any profession. The company's model is uniquely "default alive": it acquires cash-flowing, profitable engineering businesses generating approximately $5M/year in profit, meaning there is no runway anxiety from day one. With its first acquisition actively underway in Southern California, the company is compounding proprietary intelligence across firms, acquisition by acquisition. The culture is high-agency, zero-bureaucracy, and founder-minded. The team is small, hungry, and deeply mission-driven, with every hire expected to own outcomes end-to-end and operate with the conviction of a founder. About the Team The team is intentionally small, talent-dense, and founder-minded. The current core team includes Forward Deployed Engineers, a Design Engineer with a strong focus on product taste and UI/UX, and the company's co-founders. Every hire so far has had either founding engineer or founder experience on their resume, and the team shares a common ambition: many want to one day start their own companies. The company actively celebrates that aspiration and aims to create an environment where entrepreneurially minded engineers find their people. The culture is high-agency and zero-bureaucracy. Engineers are given a rough problem space and trusted to own it end-to-end, from discovery to deployment to iterating live with users. There are no detailed specs or predefined roadmaps. The team values deep curiosity, low ego, strong communication, and relentless hunger to solve real problems for real people. The office is fully in-person in NYC, with purpose-driven travel to acquired firms. The Product The company's core product is a purpose-built AI platform for architecture, engineering, and construction firms, delivered through a forward-deployed engineering model that embeds directly inside acquired firms to identify, build, and ship automation tools in weeks, not quarters. Rather than selling off-the-shelf software, engineers sit desk-side with structural, civil, and MEP engineers, learning their workflows firsthand and building bespoke tools tailored to the highest-leverage problems at each firm. Every tool shipped feeds back into a compounding platform that grows smarter and more capable with each acquisition. Key capabilities include: • AI-powered workflow automation for AEC-specific tasks, including proposal generation, document parsing, and legacy software integrations. • LLM-driven tooling using RAG, agent frameworks, and browser automation. • Integrations with Windows-native AEC software and legacy systems. • A multi-tenant shared infrastructure platform using Next.js, Kotlin, Python, AWS, and Pulumi that scales proprietary intelligence across acquired firms.

Requirements

Must-haves

Forward Deployed Engineer – AI & Engineering Automation
Full-time | On-site | SoHo, New York City, NY
$200,000–$300,000 base salary depending on experience, plus founding equity
This is a true FDE role, not solutions architecture or ticket-taking. You'll have real agency to identify problems, build the tools, and drive outcomes end-to-end at acquired firms.
What Will You Be Doing?
Embed on-site at acquired engineering firms, sit beside their staff, earn their trust, and identify the highest-leverage workflows to automate.
Own the full deployment lifecycle: discovery, build, ship, debug in production, and iterate live with real users.
Exercise strong product judgment by distilling noisy user feedback into a clear opinion on what to build and what not to build.
Own the user relationship end-to-end, running working sessions and driving scope growth independently.
Feed every on-site lesson back into a compounding platform so wins at one firm become leverage across all acquisitions.
Key Requirements
5+ years of full-stack product engineering experience with demonstrated customer-facing or forward-deployed work.
Strong English fluency and the communication poise to earn trust with non-technical users on their turf.
Willing to travel Monday–Thursday, 2–3 weeks/month during the first 100 days post-acquisition.
Proven product instincts. You can translate user pain into a clear build decision and ship it without hand-holding.
At least one strong signal: recognizable early-stage startup experience (Seed–Series C) OR top technical education.
5–10 years of experience in full-stack, forward-deployed, or customer-facing engineering.
AI-powered workflow automation for AEC-specific tasks, including proposal generation, document parsing, and legacy software integrations.
LLM-driven tooling using RAG, agent frameworks, and browser automation.
Integrations with Windows-native AEC software and legacy systems.
A multi-tenant shared infrastructure platform using Next.js, Kotlin, Python, AWS, and Pulumi that scales proprietary intelligence across acquired firms.

Nice-to-haves

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Keywords to mirror

ainext.jskotlinpythonawsllm

Platform: manatal
Effort: medium