Field Development Engineer
Role summary
Join an early-stage, founder-led technology company building AI-native software for industries including defense, aerospace, manufacturing, and complex industrial supply chains.
As a Field Development Engineer, you'll spend significant time embedded directly with customers. You'll learn how their operations work, identify the real technical and operational problems, and then build software to solve them.
This role sits between engineering and the customer. You need enough technical ability to build real products, but technical skill alone is not enough. The strongest candidates are also highly communicative, comfortable navigating difficult stakeholder situations, and energized by being directly accountable for customer outcomes.
The role is intentionally aimed at early-career engineers and exceptional new graduates. Candidates with strong shipped projects, internships, competitive programming, entrepreneurial experience, or other high-aptitude signals can be considered even without extensive professional experience.
Important
• On-site role based in San Francisco
• Significant travel to customer sites across the United States
• Customer work is typically Monday-Thursday, with San Francisco as the home base
• Approximately 0-3 years of experience preferred
• Final-year students and new graduates can be considered
• Strong coding ability required
• TypeScript / JavaScript experience strongly preferred
• PostgreSQL or strong relational database experience preferred
• Strong customer-facing communication ability required
• Strong academic or equivalent aptitude signal expected
• Candidates must be willing to physically relocate to San Francisco
• Visa sponsorship is available for qualifying candidates, including E-2 / O-1 pathways
• Relocation support is available
• Senior engineers with 5+ years of experience are generally too senior for this position
• Pure research or advisory profiles without hands-on shipping experience are unlikely to fit
• Preference for standard remote work is incompatible with this role
Job description
You'll work directly with customers, understand how their operations actually function, and build software that solves real problems on-site. The role combines full-stack engineering, implementation, customer interaction, and fast execution in highly ambiguous environments.
This is deliberately an early-career role. We're looking for someone technically sharp, highly personable, and comfortable spending significant time with customers rather than sitting behind a screen all week.
Responsibilities
• Embed directly with customers during implementation projects
• Understand complex customer workflows and operational requirements
• Translate customer problems into practical software solutions
• Build and ship full-stack product functionality
• Develop customer-specific integrations and implementations
• Work with TypeScript, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, and modern frontend frameworks
• Build features across frontend and backend systems
• Run fast 1-3 week customer implementation sprints
• Travel regularly to customer locations across the United States
• Work directly with enterprise stakeholders, procurement teams, and IT teams
• Navigate changing requirements and organizational constraints
• Present technical solutions clearly to customers
• Take ownership of customer outcomes from discovery through implementation
• Collaborate closely with founders and engineers
• Balance technical quality with speed and customer impact
Required Skills
• Approximately 0-3 years of professional experience
• At least around 1 year of coding experience, an engineering internship, or strong shipped personal / open-source projects
• Strong software engineering fundamentals
• TypeScript or JavaScript experience
• Experience with a modern frontend framework
• Relational database understanding
• PostgreSQL experience or strong SQL fundamentals
• Evidence of building and shipping software projects
• Strong customer-facing or stakeholder communication ability
• Strong university or equivalent academic background
• Excellent problem-solving ability
• Comfortable working in highly ambiguous environments
• Willingness to relocate to San Francisco
• Willingness to travel extensively across the United States
Technologies
• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• Svelte
• React
• Next.js
• PostgreSQL
• SQL
• Full-Stack Engineering
• APIs
• Integrations
• B2B SaaS
• AI-Native Software
• Enterprise Software
Nice To Have
• Forward Deployed Engineering experience
• Implementation Engineering experience
• Solutions Engineering experience
• Customer Engineering experience
• Founding Engineer experience
• Startup experience
• Strong personal software projects
• Open-source contributions
• Competitive programming experience
• Hackathon achievements
• Founder or entrepreneurial experience
• Consulting exposure combined with coding ability
• Experience presenting to customers or stakeholders
• Enterprise procurement exposure
• Enterprise IT stakeholder experience
• Defense technology interest
• Aerospace technology interest
• Supply-chain technology experience
• Manufacturing software experience
• Interest in high-intensity startup environments
Soft Skills
• Highly personable
• Strong communication skills
• Customer-first mentality
• High ownership
• Strong work ethic
• Fast learner
• Comfortable with ambiguity
• Low ego
• Strong social intelligence
• Pragmatic problem-solving
• Resilient under pressure
• Comfortable navigating organizational politics
• Bias toward action
• Willingness to travel extensively
• Strong adaptabilit