Forward Deployed Engineer
novita aiSan Mateo (CA)
Forward Deployed Engineer
Posted yesterday
novita aiSan Mateo (CA)
SENIORITY
Mid
About the role
Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you'll work at the intersection of engineering, customer success, and product. You'll partner closely with customers to understand their AI workloads, deploy solutions, troubleshoot production issues, and influence the evolution of our platform. You will act as an extension of our customers' engineering teams, helping them integrate model APIs, GPU infrastructure, and sandbox environments into real-world applications. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys wearing multiple hats—software engineer, solutions architect, product thinker, and trusted technical advisor.
What You'll Do:
Work directly with customers to understand their AI products, technical requirements, and business goals.
Deploy and integrate Novita AI products, including:
- Model APIs and inference endpoints
- Dedicated model hostingGPU cloud infrastructure
- Agent sandbox environments
Debug production issues across APIs, networking, containers, GPUs, and distributed systems.
Build customer-specific solutions, integrations, demos, and prototypes.
Travel to customer sites when necessary and collaborate closely with their engineering teams.
Translate customer feedback into product requirements and work with internal engineering teams to improve our platform.
Create reusable tooling, automation, and reference implementations that benefit future customers.
Support proof-of-concepts (PoCs) and help customers successfully move into production.
What We're Looking For:
RequirementsStrong software engineering fundamentals.
Proficiency in Python and at least one additional programming language.
Experience building or deploying cloud-native applications.
Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, and networking concepts.
Strong debugging and problem-solving skills in production environments.
Excellent communication skills and ability to work directly with customers.
Ability to operate with ambiguity and move quickly in a startup environment.
Nice to Have:
Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, LLMs, or inference systems.
Familiarity with vLLM, SGLang, Ray, or distributed serving frameworks.
Experience working with GPUs, CUDA, or large-scale compute systems.
Background in solutions engineering, developer relations, or customer-facing engineering roles.
Experience building AI agents, coding agents, or sandboxed execution environments.
Prior startup experience or experience as an early engineer.
Professional working proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.
What Success Looks Like:
In your first six months, you will:
Help multiple customers successfully launch AI workloads into production.
Become a trusted technical advisor for strategic accounts.
Build reusable solutions that accelerate future customer deployments.
Influence our product roadmap through direct customer insights.
Bridge the gap between customer requirements and internal engineering execution.
Why Join:
Novita AIWork on cutting-edge AI infrastructure used by leading AI companies and developers.
Solve challenging problems across inference, GPUs, agent systems, and distributed computing.
Have direct impact on customers and product direction.
Move fast in a highly technical and entrepreneurial environment.
Collaborate with a team deeply passionate about the future of open AI infrastructure.
Competitive pay package, 100% employer-covered premium medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) plan, free meals in the office
Before you apply
Applying takes about a minute. These four things decide how fast it moves after that.
Your profile is current
It's what we read first. Occupations, seniority and locations matter more than a long history.
Two examples you can talk through
Not a portfolio — just two pieces of work where you can explain the decisions and what you'd change.
A number in mind
What you're on now and what would make you move. We negotiate better when we know both.
Your notice period
Employers plan around it, and it's the question that stalls offers most often.
Once you apply, someone reads it and calls you before anything reaches the employer — usually within two working days.