Forward Deployed Engineer
Founding hire · 3+ yrs · Customer-facing
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Barcelona HQ or New York City — Hybrid (mostly remote, occasional office)
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Competitive base · Stock Options · Private Health Insurance
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Help us reinvent how careers grow, powered by AI
Our mission
Careers today move at the speed of bureaucracy with complex, slow, and shaped by outdated, biased, and incomplete information.
We’re here to change that. Our mission is to give leaders and employees the clarity, speed, and fairness they deserve, powered by AI at the core.
About us
We’re a tiny but mighty team of senior technologists and operators, building the product we always wished existed. At Pensero.ai, AI isn’t a bolt-on, it’s the foundation. Every product decision, technical choice, and operational process is designed with AI in mind, which means we build faster, smarter, and very differently from traditional tech companies.
The opportunity
Be the bridge between Pensero and the corporate reality of every customer we onboard.
We're hiring our first Forward Deployed Engineer, and you'll report directly to one of our co-founders.
Every customer we onboard arrives with their own corporate reality: their stack, their workflows, their team structure, their data shape, their politics. To give them the best of Pensero, we need someone who can read that reality, translate it into a deployment plan, and execute it end-to-end — half engineer, half consultant, all owner.
You won't be slotted into a defined function. You'll shape the FDE function from day one: what good onboarding looks like at Pensero, what we automate vs. tailor, what we productize vs. keep bespoke. Your playbook becomes the template for every FDE who comes after you.
What you'll do
Own customer deployments end-to-end: from kickoff to first insight, you're the technical and operational lead for each new mid-market customer.
Read the customer's reality: dig into their tools, workflows, and team structure and translate that into a tailored Pensero deployment they actually use.
Build the bespoke when it matters: when off-the-shelf integrations or dashboards don't fit, you write the custom code, analysis, or integration to make it fit — across our Python/Django + AI stack.
Spend real time on-site: roughly 30–40% of your time will be with customers, in their offices, watching how their teams actually work.
Close the loop with product: feed back what you see in the field into our roadmap, so the next customer needs less customization than the last.
Define the playbook: turn what works into a repeatable process the team can scale.
You'll love it here if you…
Have 3–5 years of engineering experience, ideally with time spent close to customers — solutions engineering, deployment, professional services, dev advocacy, or an embedded role in a startup.
Are equally sharp at code and conversation: you can hold your own in a Heads of Engineering meeting *and* in a terminal, on the same day.
Speak Python fluently and are comfortable (or quick to get comfortable) with Django.
Are at home with integrations work: REST and GraphQL APIs, OAuth, webhooks, the messy real-world stuff that connects systems.
Read engineering teams like a detective: tools, rituals, dependencies, dynamics — you reconstruct how a team really works, not just how the org chart says it does.
Translate ambiguity into structure: you walk into a messy customer setup and leave with a plan everyone understands.
Communicate in English fluently; Spanish is a strong plus.
Are excited by AI because it's transformative, not just trendy.
Want ownership: you'd rather design the process than follow one.
This might not be your sweet spot if…
You prefer deep individual focus and find customer-facing time draining.
You want a defined process to follow rather than the responsibility of designing one.
You're not comfortable being the only technical voice in a room full of customer engineers.
A schedule with regular travel and shifting customer contexts sounds exhausting rather than energizing.
Bonus points for…
Hands-on integration work with dev and collaboration tools (Git providers, issue trackers, chat platforms, etc.).
Practical experience with LLMs — prompting, RAG, evals, guardrails — even if it's been on the side.
Having shaped a function or playbook from scratch before, in any domain.
Experience supporting mid-market or enterprise B2B customers technically.
How we work
Mostly remote, with the option to use either HQ: you can be based out of Barcelona or NYC and drop into the office when it helps. We get together on-site for high-leverage moments — kickoffs, planning, key customer work — not because the calendar says so.
On the road when it matters: expect roughly 30–40% travel to customers. The rest of the time you're working from wherever you do your best thinking.
Small, senior, sharp: fewer than 10 engineers, all senior. You'll work directly with our co-founders and skip the bureaucracy.
Product-led & feedback-rich: we build fast, make decisions on data and user impact, and give feedback the way we'd want to receive it — clear, objective, and aimed at making the work better.
Compensation and perks
Competitive base salary for a mid-level, customer-facing engineering role.
Generous stock options: real ownership in the company you're helping to build — and in the function you're helping to define.
Private health insurance: because your well-being matters as much as your work.
A say in key product and company decisions**: not just your code, not just your customers.
Hiring process
1. Portfolio review — share your LinkedIn, GitHub, or any public work that shows how you think.
2. Intro call (30 min) — quick mutual fit check.
3. Practical exercise (less than 3 hours) — tailored to your experience. Use AI if it helps — we encourage it.
4. Review & discussion (1 hour) — we go through your work together, just like we would as teammates.
5. Customer-scenario roleplay (1 hour) — we simulate an onboarding conversation with a mid-market Head of Engineering. You'll scope the technical work, navigate the human dynamics, and make calls in real time.
6. Values interview — 15 min casual chat with two team members, then 30 min with a co-CEO.
7. Offer — clear, fast, and respectful of your decision-making process.
How to apply
Apply: Send your LinkedIn/GitHub and a short note describing your motivation to join to
dave@pensero.ai
