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