Forward Deployed Engineer
Summary
Founding Forward Deployed Engineer at XDOF, a ~20-person startup building training data for physical AI and robotics. Day to day, you own end-to-end data delivery for strategic robotics and frontier AI customers — pipelines, scoping, QA, and technical support — using Python, data pipelines, and MCAP/HDF5 formats.
Forward Deployed Engineer
Company: Confidential — data engine for physical AI and embodied intelligence
Location: San Mateo, CA (in office 5 days per week)
Compensation: $230,000 - $310,000 + competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: Confirm with recruiter
About the Company
The client is the data engine for physical AI and embodied intelligence. It delivers high-quality teleoperation, on-embodiment and egocentric training data to frontier AI labs and humanoid robotics companies, paired with its own hardware ecosystem and a model fine-tuning loop.
Founded in 2023, the client has raised $17M and has about 20 people.
The Role
The client is hiring a founding Forward Deployed Engineer (5-8 years) to own end-to-end delivery for its most strategic robotics and frontier AI customers. Think Palantir-style FDE: deeply technical, high agency and excellent with customers.
What You Will Do
- Own end-to-end data delivery for strategic customers: pipeline understanding, data quality, scoping and QA before shipping.
- Act as first technical responder for your accounts and resolve most issues without escalation.
- Translate complex technical concepts for sophisticated robotics and AI customers.
- Turn recurring customer needs into product and pipeline improvements and reusable playbooks.
- Grow the forward-deployed motion into platform integrations and model fine-tuning and evaluation services.
What You Bring
- 5-8 years as a customer-facing software engineer or forward deployed engineer
- Strong Python and data pipeline experience
- Ability to work independently in ambiguity
- Excellent customer communication
Nice to Have
- Robotics or AI/ML data experience
- Familiarity with MCAP or HDF5 data formats
Tech Stack
Python, data pipelines, robotics, AI/ML, MCAP, HDF5
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