AI Product Engineer / Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
Quick facts
- Pay
- $140,000 – $180,000 + Competitive Equity
- Type
- Full-time
- Location
- San Francisco, CA
- Experience
- 0–3 years
- Skills
- Python, TypeScript, React, Node.js, Figma, Kubernetes
- 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
WE’RE HIRING: AI PRODUCT ENGINEER / FORWARD DEPLOYED ENGINEER (FDE)
We’re looking for an AI Product Engineer / Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to join a rapidly growing, YC-backed AI startup working at the intersection of Voice AI, AI agents, product engineering, and enterprise technology.
You’ll work directly with technical customers, understand their problems, prototype solutions, build the product, and ship it — end-to-end.
Work Model: Remote
Travel: 10–20% travel expected for customer visits, conferences, and team offsites.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Position: AI Product Engineer / Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
Experience: 0–3 years
Employment: Full-time
Base Salary: $140,000 – $180,000 + Competitive Equity
Location: San Francisco, CA / Austin, TX / London UK
Preferred Locations: North America-based; SF or Austin preferred
Visa Sponsorship: Open to visa transfers (e.g. OPT, H1B transfers)
Work Model: Remote
Travel: 10–20% travel expected for customer visits, conferences, and team offsites.
The ideal candidate has experience as a Product Engineer, FDE, Solutions Architect, Founder, or highly entrepreneurial engineer and has already shipped a product, project, or side project used by real customers/users.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
You’ll operate at the intersection of engineering, product, and customer success.
Your responsibilities will include:
- Work directly with enterprise customers and technical stakeholders to understand their challenges
- Translate customer feedback and ambiguous requirements into clear, practical product solutions
- Own features from discovery → prototype → development → launch → iteration
- Build across both frontend and backend
- Support customer POCs and post-sales technical engagements
- Act as a high-agency technical partner for customers
- Turn individual customer problems into reusable platform capabilities
- Rapidly prototype solutions and productize what works
- Use modern AI coding tools such as Cursor, Claude, and Codex as part of your everyday engineering workflow
- Ship at startup speed while maintaining strong product judgment and communication
This is approximately a 50/50 customer interaction and hands-on coding role.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Must-Have Requirements:
- 0–3 years of experience in Product Engineering, FDE, Solutions Architecture, or as an Entrepreneur/Founder
- Strong ability to build and ship customer-facing products end-to-end
- Proficiency in TypeScript and Python
- Comfortable working across APIs, data, frontend, and backend
- Daily hands-on experience with AI-native development tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex
- Strong product and design sense
- Ability to take a vague customer request and turn it into a crisp, shippable feature
- Comfortable interacting directly with technical stakeholders, particularly engineers
- Strong ownership and written communication
- Experience working in a startup, founder-led environment, or high-velocity engineering team
- Degree from one of the specified target universities, including institutions such as Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, CMU, IITs, Waterloo, UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, Cambridge, Oxford, etc.
STRONG SIGNALS
We’d especially love to hear from candidates who have:
- Founder or entrepreneurial experience
- Built a startup, side project, or product with real traction
- Experience in a YC or high-growth startup environment
- Previously worked directly with enterprise customers
- Demonstrated ability to move quickly from an ambiguous problem to a working solution
- A strong “builder” mindset and high level of ownership
- Excellent written communication and ability to clearly communicate decisions, progress, and next steps.
TECH STACK
You may work across a modern AI/product engineering stack including:
TypeScript • Python • React • Next.js • Node.js • Tailwind • OpenAI • Anthropic • Claude • Codex • Cursor • LiveKit • WebSockets • Pipecat • Temporal • AWS • Kubernetes • PostgreSQL • Redis • Terraform • OpenTelemetry • Figma • Vapi • Retell AI • ElevenLabs
WHY THIS ROLE?
This is an opportunity to join an early-stage company building infrastructure for the rapidly expanding Voice AI / AI Agent ecosystem.
The platform focuses on making AI voice agents more reliable through:
- Large-scale synthetic voice-agent testing
- Adversarial/red-team testing
- AI-agent evaluation
- Production observability
- Detailed bug identification and reporting
The company has already analyzed 10M+ production voice-agent calls and tested 10K+ agents, with customers across regulated industries including healthcare, financial services, and telecom.
WHAT MAKES THIS OPPORTUNITY DIFFERENT?
You’ll be joining a small, senior-heavy engineering team where engineers have significant ownership and are expected to ship quickly.
- Real enterprise customers
- Fortune 100 exposure
- Rapid product development
- AI-native engineering culture
- Real revenue and production scale
- YC-backed startup environment
- High ownership and autonomy
- Competitive compensation + equity
- Opportunity to work directly with customers
- Opportunity to influence the product roadmap
The team reportedly deploys multiple times per day and operates with a strong bias toward execution.
THIS ROLE IS A GREAT FIT IF YOU...
- Love building rather than just planning
- Enjoy solving ambiguous technical problems
- Like talking to customers and understanding their pain points
- Want to combine engineering with product thinking
- Use AI coding tools as part of your normal workflow
- Can move comfortably between frontend and backend
- Have shipped something used by real people
- Thrive in fast-moving startup environments
- Want meaningful ownership early in your career
THIS MAY NOT BE FOR YOU IF...
- You prefer working exclusively on backend/infra with no customer interaction
- You avoid demos or customer conversations
- You dislike live debugging and ambiguous problems
- You need highly detailed specifications before starting work
- You’re not comfortable taking ownership from idea through deployment
INTERESTED?
If you’re a Product Engineer, FDE, Solutions Engineer/Architect, founder, or ambitious early-career engineer who wants to build real AI products and work directly with customers, we’d love to hear from you.
DM me your CV/profile or comment “INTERESTED” below.
Please include examples of products, projects, startups, or side projects you’ve actually built and shipped.
#Hiring #AIJobs #AIEngineer #ProductEngineer #ForwardDeployedEngineer #FDE #ArtificialIntelligence #VoiceAI #AIAgents #MachineLearning #SoftwareEngineer #TypeScript #Python #React #StartupJobs #TechJobs #YCStartup #SanFranciscoJobs #AustinJobs #LondonJobs #EngineeringJobs #OpenToWork
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 Carnaby Fox 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: Engineers, All Other (SOC 17-2199) — estimated from the job title.
- 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 “Engineer” — 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)Engineers, All Other · San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Annual prevailing wages set by the Department of Labor (OFLC).
| Level | Prevailing wage | H-1B lottery odds* |
|---|---|---|
| Level I | $98,051 | ~15% |
| Level II | $130,146 | ~31% |
| Level III | $162,261 | ~46% |
| Level IV | $194,355 | ~61% |
This job pays $140,000–$180,000 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.