Forward Deployed Engineer, Voice AI (Redwood City, CA)

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 fast-scaling voice AI company reimagining the call center from first principles. Their platform turns any LLM into a human-like voice agent, and thousands of companies now use it to handle sales, support, and logistics calls that once required large teams of human agents. Backed by Y Combinator, Alt Capital, and other leading investors, this is a company with real revenue, real enterprise customers, and real momentum — scaling from roughly $5M in ARR at the start of 2025 to an estimated $60M–$80M ARR in 2026, while staying profitable.

The Mission

They believe the next generation of great customer experience won't be run by human call centers with basic automation bolted on — it'll be run by AI. Their mission is to build a modern CX platform where intelligent AI "workers" act as frontline agents, QA analysts, and even managers, continuously executing, monitoring, and improving every customer interaction.

The Opportunity

This is a forward-deployed engineering role where you're never far from either a codebase or a client on a call. You'll embed directly with enterprise teams — bridging technical and non-technical stakeholders — to take voice AI solutions from first prototype to full production. You'll own the technical win end-to-end: scoping the build, shipping the integration, and shaping how the product evolves based on what you learn in the field. The company is hiring three engineers into this role.

What You'll Do

Lead end-to-end delivery of client projects on the platform, from prototyping to production, communicating progress and risk clearly along the way

Become a go-to expert on building voice AI solutions, especially the art of LLM prompting

Ship real full-stack integrations (Python, JavaScript/React, Node.js) connecting the platform to enterprise tools like CRMs, ERPs, and scheduling systems

Act as a true partner to sales — engaging clients directly to gather requirements, prototype demos, and present system designs

Scope projects, resolve technical blockers, and keep cross-functional teams aligned with concise updates

Codify reusable patterns into shared tools or platform components that speed up future deployments

Translate field feedback into actionable product and go-to-market recommendations

What You Bring

5+ years in a customer-facing technical role — Solutions Engineer, Forward-Deployed Engineer, Technical PM, or ex-founder/founding engineer — across multiple startups, or a tenured run with fast promotions at Big Tech

A degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or Electrical Engineering, ideally from a top US institution

Hands-on proficiency with React, Node.js, Python, and AWS

Demonstrable end-to-end, production-grade system deployments in enterprise or high-growth startup settings

Deep knowledge of distributed systems, backed by a track record of writing production-grade code

Full comfort with an in-person schedule: five days a week onsite in Redwood City, CA, with Sundays remotely for creative or administrative work

Bonus: prior experience in voice AI

Key Success Drivers

You're the rare person equally comfortable debugging an LLM prompting issue in the morning and presenting a system design to an enterprise client's VP by afternoon. You bring founder-level ownership and genuine comfort operating in ambiguity — this role rewards people who've shipped things themselves, not just advised on them. Strong candidates are highly collaborative, speak up readily to suggest improvements, and have a career track record free of frequent short-tenure moves.

Why Join?

Compensation & Equity

Base salary $215K–$290K

Extremely competitive equity

Best-offer-upfront philosophy: choose from cash-equity balance options

Location

Onsite, five days a week, in Redwood City, CA, Sundays remotely for creative/admin work

Visa Sponsorship Details

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

Benefits

100% coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance

$70/day meal credit for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks

$200/month wellness reimbursement (gym, fitness classes, etc.)

$300/month commuter reimbursement (gas, transit, etc.)

$75/month phone and $50/month internet reimbursement

Interviewing Process

Intro meeting

Technical Interview I, Backend (45 min): practical coding session on CoderPad. Candidates who excel may skip straight to onsite

Second phone interview

Onsite

Offer

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.