Terrakotta

Forward Deployed Engineer

Shoreline, WA, US Full-time

Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

Location: Seattle

Company: Terrakotta AI

About the Role

We’re hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to work directly with customers and founders to ship high-impact product features fast. You’ll operate at the intersection of engineering, product, and deployment—owning outcomes from first onboarding through long-term usage.

This role is deeply customer-facing. You won’t just build—you’ll ensure what you build actually gets adopted.

What You’ll Do

  • Ship end-to-end product features that directly impact user behavior and revenue
  • Work directly with founders and customer executives to understand needs and drive adoption
  • Own onboarding: design and refine first-time user experiences until they are seamless
  • Obsess over UX—make complex workflows feel simple and intuitive
  • Blend engineering and product thinking across frontend, backend, data, and performance
  • Deploy into real customer environments and iterate based on live feedback
  • Prototype quickly, test in production, and push code daily
  • Act as a bridge between customer, product, and engineering

What We’re Looking For

  • Strong full-stack engineering ability (Python + modern frontend preferred)
  • High product and UX intuition—you notice friction immediately and fix it
  • Comfortable working directly with senior stakeholders and customer executives
  • Ability to operate in ambiguity and turn vague problems into shipped solutions
  • Bias toward speed and iteration over perfection
  • Ownership mindset—you care about adoption, not just delivery

Bonus

  • Experience in forward deployed / solutions / customer engineering roles
  • Background in startups or high-growth environments
  • Familiarity with AWS, APIs, and data systems
  • Experience with onboarding flows, activation metrics, or product-led growth

Why This Role

  • Direct ownership over customer outcomes and revenue
  • Work side-by-side with founders and enterprise customers
  • High autonomy, fast iteration, no bureaucracy
  • Build and deploy systems shaping the future of commercial real estate

🚀 Y Combinator Company Info

Y Combinator Batch: W24
Team Size: 5 employees
Industry: B2B Software and Services -> Sales
Company Description: AI platform for phone-first sellers

💰 Compensation

Salary Range: $110 - $130

📋 Job Details

Job Type: Full-time
Experience Level: Any (new grads ok)
Engineering Type: Full stack

🛠️ Required Skills

Python React