Forward Deployed Engineer (Customer Facing)

Formant is a Series A startup focused on building the operating system for intelligent machines. They are seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to support AI deployments and work closely with customers to implement practical AI-powered solutions in real-world environments.

Responsibilities:

• Support and implement end-to-end AI deployments for customers, from discovery through production rollout
• Participate in on-site customer engagements (approximately 25–35% travel)
• Work with external stakeholders to translate customer operational needs into technical requirements and working solutions
• Troubleshoot and resolve production issues in collaboration with engineering
• Help document best practices and implementation playbooks
• Build and iterate on LLM-powered workflows, RAG pipelines, and AI-assisted automation tools
• Prototype quickly while balancing reliability and performance
• Integrate with customer systems and APIs
• Navigate real-world physical constraints (latency, connectivity, hardware limitations)
• Contribute reusable components that accelerate future deployments
• Support existing external customers and resolve their potential issues
• Partner with product engineering to relay field feedback and improve platform capabilities
• Support technical conversations during customer engagements
• Help enable customer teams through documentation and training materials
• Contribute insights that shape product roadmap and deployment strategy

Requirements:

• 2–4 years in a customer-facing technical role (Solutions Engineering, Implementation Engineering, Technical Support Engineering, or similar)
• Exposure to LLMs, prompt engineering, or AI/ML workflows (production experience a plus but not required) and appetite working with AI tools
• Experience deploying technical solutions into production environments
• Strong programming skills in Python or TypeScript
• Comfortable working in ambiguity and learning new domains quickly
• Willingness to travel for customer deployments (25–35%)
• Experience integrating APIs and building full-stack solutions
• Familiarity with React or SQL
• Exposure to robotics or physical systems (ROS, AMRs, industrial automation, etc.)
• Experience at a startup or in a fast-paced environment
• Background working with operational or industrial customers