Forward Deployed Software Engineer

Role Title: Forward Deployed Engineer

Hiring Company: Confidential (public-safety AI startup)

Location: In-person - New York, NY or SF Bay Area, CA (exceptional candidates outside these hubs considered; expect higher travel)

Candidate Criteria - Years of Experience: 4-8

Candidate Criteria - Skills: Python and/or TypeScript; APIs; data pipelines; shipping small tools end-to-end without engineering handoff; customer deployment ownership (pilot through renewal); evidence and investigative data handling (Cellebrite/GrayKey extractions, CDRs, ALPR, body cam and jail call audio); on-site customer enablement with non-technical users; product feedback loops and playbook documentation

Job Description: A public-safety AI startup helps law enforcement search evidence and solve crime. Police and prosecutors across the US use the platform to accelerate investigations into homicides, cold cases, and other major offenses by reducing digital evidence overload. The team includes engineers from elite defense-tech and intelligence backgrounds who have built national-scale systems before, with roughly 10 active customer deployments today and a clear path to 25-40 over the next nine months.

The Forward Deployed Engineer owns customer outcomes end-to-end: scoping pilots, ingesting messy evidentiary data, configuring the product per agency, sitting with detectives and prosecutors while they work cases, writing scripts and integrations when the product does not quite fit, and feeding learnings directly into the roadmap. The seat owns the customer relationship from pilot through first renewal.

Typical engagement is a 2-6 week pilot, followed by an annual contract, followed by in-agency expansion. Time split is roughly 60% customer-facing (calls, onsite, async support), 30% building/scripting/configuring, and 10% internal (product feedback, playbook documentation, hiring loops).

This is not a sales engineering seat. You will live inside customer codebases, dig through real evidence data, and write the scripts that make the product work for each agency. The customers are not tech-native, so the bar is engineering depth paired with the soft skills to operate in a sheriff's bullpen or DA office.

What you'll own:

• Scope pilots with new customer agencies and translate operational goals into technical deployment plans
• Ingest messy evidentiary data per customer (Cellebrite/GrayKey extractions, CDRs, ALPRs, body cam, jail call audio, PDFs, social media)
• Configure the product per-agency and write scripts or integrations when the product does not quite fit
• Sit with detectives, prosecutors, and analysts while they work, and translate workflow gaps into product improvements
• Own customer relationships from pilot through first renewal and expansion
• Feed learnings directly into the product roadmap
• Pair with the existing FDE, technical CS, and engineering teams

Must-haves:

• Strong engineering: comfortable in Python and/or TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, shipping small tools without an engineering handoff
• Genuinely customer-facing: at home in a sheriff's bullpen or DA office, not just on Zoom
• Bias to action and comfort with ambiguity
• Owner mindset
• Mission alignment with public safety and US government work
• Willing to go through FBI background checks and CJIS clearance (the team supports the process)
• Based in NYC or the SF Bay Area

Nice-to-haves:

• Prior FDE, solutions engineering, or implementation experience selling into non-tech-native customers (defense-tech FDE background is the canonical profile, but not required)
• Exposure to law enforcement, prosecution, intelligence, defense, or e-discovery/forensics
• Familiarity with evidence formats: Cellebrite/GrayKey extractions, CDRs, ALPR, body cam, jail call audio
• Design sensibility (can spot bad UX and articulate why)
• Prior experience at a defense or public-safety adjacent startup

Compensation & benefits: $140,000 - $220,000, founding-hire level equity (4-year vest, 1-year cliff), 401(k), medical and dental. Full-time, in-person. Visa sponsorship not available.