Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

Role

As a founding member of Glean’s Forward Deployed team, you will operate with founder-level autonomy to identify large, unsolved business problems at strategic customers and build 0-to-1 product surfaces on Glean’s Work AI platform. You will work in small pods with Forward Deployed PMs, partner directly with customer C-suite and technical teams, and collaborate closely with Glean’s core R&D teams to shape platform capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead deep opportunity discovery with customers to form and pressure-test product hypotheses.
• Design and build 0-to-1, production-ready solutions that extend Glean’s platform and solve problems no product currently addresses.
• Serve as a technical partner and communicator with C-suite stakeholders and cross-functional customer teams.
• Make working solutions repeatable and scalable by collaborating with core engineering and product teams.
• Stay aligned with platform R&D and feed field learnings back into product and platform roadmaps.

Requirements

• 4+ years in technical roles with a track record of shipping production software; former technical founders encouraged to apply.
• Proven 0-to-1 product delivery experience: built production systems from scratch used by real customers at scale.
• Production AI experience (prompt engineering, agent development, evaluation frameworks, deployment at scale), not just prototypes.
• Full-stack technical depth and strong programming skills across the stack; solid understanding of enterprise systems.
• Strong business acumen and customer instincts: able to diagnose real problems and translate them into product hypotheses.
• Excellent executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Builder’s judgment: make pragmatic tradeoffs, simplify scope, and spot/solve problems early.
• Curiosity, resourcefulness, and a scrappy approach to ambiguous problems.
• Willingness to travel 25–50%.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior experience as a founder, at a top-tier tech company, or in a forward deployed engineering role.
• Technical degree in CS, engineering, math, or related field.
• Deep familiarity with LLMs, retrieval systems, and evaluation frameworks.
• Experience driving technology adoption inside large enterprises.

Location & Travel

• This role is remote and requires 25–50% travel.

Compensation & Benefits

• Standard range: $160,000 - $270,000 annually (varies by location, level, experience).
• May be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and benefits.
• Benefits include medical, vision, and dental coverage; opportunity to contribute to a 401(k) plan; generous time-off policy; home office improvement stipend; annual education and wellness stipends; regular company events; and daily healthy lunches.

Interview note

• As part of the interview process, candidates complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion to demonstrate how they think about, design, and use AI to drive impact.