Forward Deployed AI Engineer
Quick facts
- Pay
- $180,000 - $300,000 a year
- Type
- Full-time
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Experience
- 3–6 years
- Skills
- Python, TypeScript
- Industry
- Information Technology — 671 open jobs
- Visa in listing
- H-1B, OPT
- Apply
- Free to apply — never pay anyone for a job offer or visa sponsorship
Job description
Top-of-market comp. $180K–$300K base plus meaningful founding-team equity at a 30-person company that's just getting started.
VERY FAST INTERVIEW PROCESS and WILLINGNESS TO MOVE QUICK
Open to SWE, FDE, Product Eng, Implementations Eng with VC-backed pedigree who has experience scaling enterprise deployments
Extreme ownership from day one. You work directly with enterprise customers and ship end-to-end AI automations that show up immediately in their workflows, no bureaucracy, no hand-holding.
Why candidates should join Rocket-ship traction. Client hit multiple seven figures in ARR in just over a year and already serves 30% of the top 50 insurance brokers in the country. Fresh $25M Series A. Backed by CRV, South Park Commons and Foundation Capital, strong institutional names with deep enterprise software conviction. Extreme ownership from day one. You work directly with enterprise customers and ship end-to-end AI automations that show up immediately in their workflows, no bureaucracy, no hand-holding. Top-of-market comp. $180K–$300K base plus meaningful founding-team equity at a 30-person company that's just getting started. Staff-level team pedigree. You're joining ex-Affirm, Uber, DoorDash and McKinsey operators in-person in San Francisco, the kind of team that moves fast and builds things that matter.
Dealbreaker
Work experience
- Customer-facing engineering experience on post-sales side scoping problems, building solutions, and shipping within the same week
- VC-backed startup pedigree, experience at a company that raised Series A+ from a top-tier VC
Hard skills
Proficient in Python and/or TypeScript
Baseline Seniority
3 - 6 years of experience in software engineering, forward deployed, solutions, implementation or product engineering, role is ~70% coding (mix of customer-facing builds and platform work) and ~30% customer-facing scoping and requirements gathering
Work experience
Experience scaling enterprise deployments, building and shipping multiple product features or automations for large customers
Education
Degree from a top university, Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Duke, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, UIUC, or equivalent strongly preferred
Soft skills
Comfortable context-switching between customer-facing communication and heads-down coding
Miscellaneous
On-site 5 days/week in San Francisco
Work experience
Built or deployed AI/ML automations or agentic workflows in a production environment
Hard skills
Experience building or integrating LLM/AI automation pipelines (e.g. OpenAI, LangChain, or similar)
Traits to avoid
- Candidates with only large-company experience, no startup exposure or software consulting backgrounds
- SWEs-turned-FDEs looking to return to pure SWE (no direct customer interaction experience)
- Job hoppers, 3+ jobs in 3 years for early-career candidates is a red flag
- International candidates without substantive US work experience
About this role
This is a hands-on, customer-facing engineering role at the intersection of AI, product, and implementation. You'll work directly with some of the largest insurance brokerages in the country, understanding their workflows, building AI automations on Client's platform, and shipping solutions within days, not months. The role is ~70% coding and ~30% customer-facing scoping. You'll hop on a call with a customer to understand their problem, then build and deploy an agent that solves it, often in the same week. Everything you build feeds back into the platform, so your work scales beyond a single customer. You won't be doing pre-sales, demos, or upselling, deployment strategists handle that. Your job is to deeply understand the business domain and build. This role is ideal for engineers who thrive at the intersection of customer empathy and technical execution, and who want to work on cutting-edge AI agents transforming a $1.5 trillion industry that hasn't seen real technology in 20 years.
What You Will Do
- Own end-to-end implementation of enterprise customer engagements, from requirements gathering to deployed solution
- Build and ship AI agents and automations on Client's platform, deepening adoption within our largest strategic accounts
- Work directly with enterprise customers (post-sales) to understand business problems and scope technical solutions
- Ship rapidly, expect to deliver working solutions within the same week as customer conversations
- Integrate successful customer-specific work back into Client's core platform
- Collaborate with product and engineering teams to translate customer insights into scalable features
About You
- 3–6 years of post-college engineering experience, no new grads
- Customer-facing engineering experience, comfortable interfacing with enterprise customers regularly
- Full-stack proficiency, comfortable shipping across front end and back end
- Experience at a VC-backed startup (Series A+) funded by top-tier VCs
- Degree from a top university (Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Duke, Harvey Mudd, UIUC, or equivalent)
- Strong ownership mentality, you don't wait for process, you create it
Bonus Qualifications
- Experience building or deploying AI/ML automations or agentic workflows in production
- Proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript
- Experience in insurance or financial services domain
Salary $180K - $300K
On-site work policy 5 days in-office in SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Full-time position
Location SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Tech stack Python, TypeScript, AI/ML Automations
Equity Competitive equity
Visa sponsorship details Open to visa transfers (e.g. OPT, H1B transfers)
Hiring Count Looking to hire 2 - 3 candidates for this role
Visa sponsorship record
No public sponsorship records foundWe didn't find H-1B, H-1B1, E-3 or green card (PERM) filings under the name The SeventhHire LLC in the Department of Labor and USCIS data. That doesn't mean the job can't be sponsored — the company may file under a different legal name, be new to sponsorship, or sponsor a visa that isn't in these datasets (for example H-2B or J-1).
Tip: ask the recruiter early, in writing, which visa they sponsor and whether they cover the legal and filing fees.
Which visas can work for this job
Occupation: Software Developers (SOC 15-1252).
- Mentioned in the listing
H-1B, OPT
- H-1B cap-exempt employer
Regular cap-subject employer — a new H-1B needs to win the lottery in March (unless you already hold cap-counted H-1B status).
- TN (citizens of Canada and Mexico)
This kind of role may fit the USMCA profession “Computer Systems Analyst (or Engineer, for engineering-degree holders)” — it depends on the actual duties. No lottery, no cap; you need the matching degree or license.
- E-3 (Australia) and H-1B1 (Chile, Singapore)
Same degree requirement as H-1B, but no lottery and a separate quota that is rarely filled.
- O-1 (extraordinary ability)
For candidates with awards, publications, press, a high salary or critical roles at distinguished organizations. No cap, no lottery; the employer files a petition.
- STEM OPT extension (F-1 students)
Requires an E-Verify employer. We didn't find this company in the E-Verify list — ask HR.
Salary vs prevailing wage
Level II (qualified)Software Developers · San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Annual prevailing wages set by the Department of Labor (OFLC).
| Level | Prevailing wage | H-1B lottery odds* |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | $137,093 | ~15% |
| Level II | $165,131 | ~31% |
| Level III | $193,149 | ~46% |
| Level IV | $221,187 | ~61% |
This job pays $180,000–$300,000 a year — that's Level II (qualified). In the wage-weighted H-1B lottery a Level II registration gets 2 entries; estimated selection chance about 31%.
* Odds are DHS projections for the FY2027 wage-weighted lottery (actual results vary by year and employer). Since the FY2027 cap season the H-1B lottery is weighted by wage level: Level I = 1 entry, II = 2, III = 3, IV = 4. The level is set by the offered wage against the prevailing wage for the occupation and worksite. Separately, a $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions for workers outside the US was announced in 2025; as of September 2026 a federal court ruling keeps it unenforceable while appeals continue — check the current status.
Sources: U.S. Department of Labor OFLC disclosure data (H-1B/H-1B1/E-3 LCA, PERM), OFLC prevailing wage data, USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub, E-Verify participating employers. Data loaded: LCA FY2024–FY2026, PERM, USCIS Data Hub, OFLC wages; updated 2026-10-03. Employers are matched by name, so records of companies with similar names can occasionally be mixed up. This is general information, not legal advice — talk to an immigration attorney about your case.