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Forward Deployed Engineer

Posted today

darwin aiAlbany (GA)

SENIORITY

Lead

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About the role

Darwin is building the AI operating system for state and local government, helping agencies govern AI responsibly and turn complex, manual processes into practical AI-powered solutions. Following our $15M Series A led by Insight Partners, we're growing quickly and expanding our work with government organizations across the country. Our Launchpad team helps agencies transform their workflows into working AI applications, whether from our existing catalog or built from scratch. We're looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer who loves working directly with customers, understanding their challenges, and building solutions that make a real difference. This is a hands-on engineering role where you'll own customer use cases from discovery through deployment, working closely with our AI Engineering team to build and ship real applications.
What You'll Do: Own a portfolio of custom AI use cases, from initial discovery and scoping through development, deployment, and ongoing improvement. Work directly with government customers to understand their workflows, data, systems, requirements, and success metrics. Build AI-powered applications using Darwin's Agent Builder, integrating customer systems and iterating based on real-world feedback. Collaborate closely with our AI Engineering team on architecture, prompts, evaluations, and technical implementation. Configure, deploy, troubleshoot, and optimize both existing and custom-built AI applications. Triage technical issues and feature requests, partnering with engineering to prioritize development. Lead technical workshops, product demonstrations, and customer training sessions. Analyze product usage and adoption to identify opportunities to improve workflows and customer outcomes.
What We're Looking For: An engineer who enjoys working directly with customers as much as building technical solutions. Hands-on experience using AI coding agents, with the judgment to know when to rely on them and when to dig into the code. Strong technical skills, including working with APIs, integrations, prompts, and application development. The ability to turn complex, messy workflows into practical, working solutions. Strong communication skills, with the ability to collaborate with engineers and explain technical concepts to nontechnical stakeholders. A proactive, solutions-oriented mindset and the confidence to set clear expectations with customers.
Qualifications: 3+ years of experience in forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, or implementation engineering. Demonstrated experience delivering custom applications or integrations to real customers. Proficiency in Python or JavaScript, APIs, and data integrations. Experience working in a startup or high-growth environment. Experience in the public sector is a plus. Our ideal candidate has 2+ years of experience as a Forward Deployed Engineer or Solutions Engineer at an AI-native startup, with real customer-facing builds and deployments to show for it.
Why Join: DarwinReal ownership: Own customer use cases from day one and see your work deployed in real government agencies. Applied AI: Work alongside our AI Engineering team to solve meaningful, real-world challenges. Leadership access: Help shape the evolution of Launchpad and influence product direction. Opportunity to grow: Join a fast-growing, post-Series A company as we expand our customer base and capabilities.

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