About us
Encord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production. Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more.
We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator.
The role
We're looking for an exceptional Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to join our product engineering team. This is an engineering-first role: FDEs are the technical owners who take the Encord platform into our most strategic and advanced customer environments, working directly with clients' engineering teams to identify problems and design, build, and ship the solutions that solve them.
As an early member of the Forward Deployed team, you'll have an outsized impact on shaping a critical function for Encord and our customers, in a role that combines hands-on engineering with direct client ownership. You’ll do tough system design calls under real customer load, and customers will trust you to get their hardest integration and workflow problems actually solved. You’ll operate autonomously, defining your own path to a solution, managing client relationships directly, and feeding what you learn straight back into the product roadmap.
As an end-to-end owner of the deployment process, you will work across a variety of problems: technical engineering, operational excellence, and strategic product work. Expect to build data integrations, guide customers with best practices, demo the product, and contribute to the product roadmap.
What you'll do
Design and ship high-quality, production-grade code that integrates Encord into customers' most complex data and ML pipelines
Own system design decisions for customer deployments, balancing correctness, scalability, and speed
Work directly with clients' engineering teams to diagnose problems, scope solutions, and ship fixes end-to-end
Build data integrations and technical solutions that support customer onboarding, adoption, and scale at pace
Communicate technical plans and tradeoffs clearly to both engineering counterparts and non-technical stakeholders
Operate with a high degree of autonomy: identify the right problem to solve, decide how to solve it, and see it through with minimal oversight
Collaborate with product and engineering to feed customer insights back into the roadmap
Help define and scale the Forward Deployed function as an early team member
Who we're looking for
A strong software engineer with excellent system design instincts and a track record of shipping high-quality code, frequently and reliably
An excellent problem-solver who can take an ambiguous customer situation, break it down, and design a technical solution from scratch
A great communicator who is motivated by building customer relationships and solving customer problems
Entrepreneurial and autonomous mind, energized by ambiguity and competing technical priorities, and able to manage client relationships and technical delivery without close supervision
Ambitious and hardworking, with a track record of top-percentile performance in whatever environment you've been in, whether engineering, academia, business, or sport
Experience requirements
3–8 years in a software engineering role; Python is a big plus
Experience building or working with data integrations and APIs
Strong written and verbal communication skills
Ability to thrive in ambiguity and take ownership without being told what to do
Prior experience at a high-growth startup is a plus
Why Encord
Competitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup
Clear, accelerated growth opportunities as the company scales rapidly
Strong in-person culture: 4–5 days/week in our newly launched office
Flexible PTO to fully recharge
18 paid vacation days in the U.S. plus federal holidays
Annual learning & development budget
Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
Frequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe
Bi-annual company offsites, twice-weekly team lunches, and monthly socials
Skills Required
- 3-8 years in a technical, client-facing or solutions engineering role
- Experience building or working with data integrations and APIs
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to thrive in ambiguity and take ownership without being told what to do
- Prior experience at a high-growth startup
What We Do
Encord is the data layer for physical AI. We're how the world's most ambitious AI teams turn messy, multimodal data into production systems - from humanoid robots to autonomous vehicles to smart infrastructure. 300+ teams including Toyota, Skydio, and Maxar rely on Encord to curate, manage, and align the data their models actually need. $110M raised. San Francisco, New York, and London.
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