Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

About the Role

Join Glean as a founding Forward Deployed Engineer to discover and build 0-to-1 AI-powered product surfaces for strategic enterprise customers, partnering closely with Forward Deployed PMs and C‑suite stakeholders. You will drive deep opportunity discovery, ship production AI solutions and scale successful prototypes into platform features while traveling 25–50%.

Building AI agents and production LLM integrations—directly aligned with vibe coding and prompt/agent engineering.

Location: United States

Salary: USD 160,000 - 270,000/year

Type: Full Time

Posted: Yesterday

Category: Software Engineering

Vibe Markers: 🚀 Startup, 💻 Open Source, 🔥 Hot

Experience Level: Senior

Job Description

Role

As a founding member of Glean’s Forward Deployed team, you will operate with founder-level autonomy to identify large, unsolved business problems at strategic customers and build 0-to-1 product surfaces on Glean’s Work AI platform. You will work in small pods with Forward Deployed PMs, partner directly with customer C-suite and technical teams, and collaborate closely with Glean’s core R&D teams to shape platform capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead deep opportunity discovery with customers to form and pressure-test product hypotheses.
• Design and build 0-to-1, production-ready solutions that extend Glean’s platform and solve problems no product currently addresses.
• Serve as a technical partner and communicator with C-suite stakeholders and cross-functional customer teams.
• Make working solutions repeatable and scalable by collaborating with core engineering and product teams.
• Stay aligned with platform R&D and feed field learnings back into product and platform roadmaps.

Requirements

• 4+ years in technical roles with a track record of shipping production software; former technical founders encouraged to apply.
• Proven 0-to-1 product delivery experience: built production systems from scratch used by real customers at scale.
• Production AI experience (prompt engineering, agent development, evaluation frameworks, deployment at scale), not just prototypes.
• Full-stack technical depth and strong programming skills across the stack; solid understanding of enterprise systems.
• Strong business acumen and customer instincts: able to diagnose real problems and translate them into product hypotheses.
• Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Builder’s judgment: make pragmatic tradeoffs, simplify scope, and spot/solve problems early.
• Curiosity, resourcefulness, and a scrappy approach to ambiguous problems.
• Willingness to travel 25–50%.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior experience as a founder, at a top-tier tech company, or in a forward deployed engineering role.
• Technical degree in CS, engineering, math, or related field.
• Deep familiarity with LLMs, retrieval systems, and evaluation frameworks.
• Experience driving technology adoption inside large enterprises.

Location & Travel

• This role is remote and requires 25–50% travel.

Compensation & Benefits

• Standard range: $160,000 - $270,000 annually (varies by location, level, experience).
• May be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and benefits.
• Benefits include medical, vision, and dental coverage; opportunity to contribute to a 401(k) plan; generous time-off policy; home office improvement stipend; annual education and wellness stipends; regular company events; and daily healthy lunches.

Interview note

• As part of the interview process, candidates complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion to demonstrate how they think about, design, and use AI to drive impact.

Tech Stack

LLMs, Retrieval systems, Enterprise Graph, Personal Knowledge Graph, AI agents, Evaluation frameworks, APIs, Enterprise SaaS connectors, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, ServiceNow, Zendesk, GitHub

Skills

Full-Stack Development, System Design, 0-to-1 Product Development, Product Discovery, Executive Communication, Stakeholder Management, Customer Engagement, Business Acumen, AI Product Development, Prompt Engineering, Agent Development, Evaluation Frameworks, Deployment & Scaling, Cross-functional Collaboration, Problem Solving, Strategic Thinking, Builder's Judgment, Curiosity & Scrappiness, Travel Readiness

Benefits

• Fully Remote
• Medical Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• 401k contribution
• Home office improvement stipend
• Education stipend
• Wellness stipend
• Generous time-off
• Equity (possible)
• Variable compensation (possible)
• Daily healthy lunches
• Company events