Forward Deployed Engineer, Enterprise Document AI (SF)

Lavendo partners with startups and high‑growth companies to help them hire top‑tier sales, GTM, and technical talent. This role is with one of our clients; we’ll share full details about the company and interview process as we get to know you and confirm mutual fit.

About the Company

Our client is a Series B enterprise AI startup building infrastructure that turns complex documents into structured, AI-ready data. Its API-based platform processes PDFs, images, spreadsheets, and other unstructured files, helping organizations build production AI applications and automate document-intensive workflows.

Our client supports AI-native startups and large enterprises with demanding accuracy and deployment requirements. The team is founder-led and engineering-first, with engineers working directly with customers and using what they learn to improve the product.

The Mission

Make complex document data reliable enough to build on.

Our client helps organizations unlock information inside unstructured files while preserving the detail and structure that downstream applications depend on. The goal is to deliver accurate, usable data that holds up in production, not simply extract text that looks convincing in a demo.

The Opportunity

Own the technical work that turns an enterprise evaluation into a successful production deployment.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer , you’ll build applications, run evaluations, troubleshoot integrations, and stay close to customer results. You’ll partner with sales during technical evaluations, then own technical success for 1-3 enterprise accounts, helping customers resolve issues, deepen adoption, and expand into additional use cases.

This is a founding role within our client’s developing FDE function. You’ll work directly with founders, product, and engineering to shape the platform and establish how future deployments are delivered.

The role combines substantial engineering work with customer relationships and deployment responsibility. Both backend-leaning engineers and customer-facing FDEs are welcome, but independent coding and production deployment ownership are essential. This position requires full-time, in-person work in San Francisco, five days per week.

What You'll Do

Turn customer requirements into working applications and integrations

Partner with AEs and SEs on evaluations, custom demos, and competitive benchmarking

Build custom applications, agents, evaluation tools, and product enhancements

Own technical success for 1-3 enterprise accounts, meeting weekly or biweekly

Resolve deployment and integration issues to deepen adoption

Build diagnostics, dashboards, and evaluation harnesses to measure performance and catch regressions

Explain technical decisions and trade-offs to customer stakeholders

Identify new use cases and expand deployments across teams

Translate customer insights into product improvements and engineering priorities

What You Bring

3+ years of full-time production engineering experience shipping software for enterprise customers

Experience at a recognizable, high-growth startup with strong engineering standards

Independent ownership of building, deploying, and supporting production applications or AI pipelines

Strong production-level Python and engineering fundamentals

Solid understanding of AI, LLMs, and machine learning concepts

Use of Claude, Codex, or similar coding tools beyond autocomplete, guided by sound technical judgment

Enterprise deployment experience spanning integrations, troubleshooting, and customer-specific constraints

Clear communication and confidence leading technical customer conversations

A quantitative approach to debugging, experimentation, and performance measurement

Willingness to work on-site in San Francisco five days per week

Key Success Drivers

Ownership: You identify what needs doing and follow through until the issue is resolved and the deployment works

Technical judgment: You build solutions that fit the problem and validate them with evidence

Customer judgment: You understand the customer’s technical context and connect engineering work to useful outcomes

Quality: You move quickly without overlooking the details that determine production reliability

Communication: You explain trade-offs clearly and keep technical and business stakeholders aligned

Resourcefulness: You build the tools, diagnostics, or prototypes needed to unblock progress

Adaptability: You move comfortably between coding, evaluations, troubleshooting, and customer conversations

Why Join?

Compensation: 220,000-320,000 annual salary, plus competitive equity

Scope: Help build the FDE function while owning evaluations, implementation, and ongoing technical outcomes

Production impact: Solve document-processing and deployment challenges that directly affect enterprise AI applications

Product influence: Work directly with founders and engineering to turn customer needs into platform improvements

Team: Join a founder-led, engineering-first environment with close collaboration across product, sales, and customer success

Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision insurance; unlimited PTO; flexible parental leave; and up to $150/month in eligible health and wellness reimbursement

Office support: Free daily lunch and reimbursed transportation

Visa support: Open to visa transfers (e.g. OPT, H1B transfers)

Interviewing Process

HR screening

Hiring manager screen and technical interview - 30 minutes: Live Python coding to assess engineering fundamentals and problem-solving.

On-site practical assessment: Build an application relevant to the role, with a focus on engineering depth or technical presentation and customer communication.

Offer extended.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, disability, genetic information, veteran or military status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law.