Forward Deployed Engineer

About Formant

At Formant, we’re building the operating system for intelligent machines. Our mission is to unlock the full potential of robotics by making it effortless to manage, operate, and scale heterogeneous fleets—powered by AI. Our customers span autonomous cleaning, logistics, agriculture, and more. We’re a small, agile team working on a big, tangible future: real‑world AI in motion.

We're hiring our first Forward Deployed Engineer: a customer champion who brings AI capabilities into the messy, complex reality of production robotics environments. This isn't a role for someone who wants to perfect algorithms in isolation. You'll spend your time embedded with customers, understanding their operations, identifying where AI can transform their business, and building solutions that deliver measurable impact.

• Own end‑to‑end AI implementations for enterprise customers ($500k+ ARR), from initial discovery through production deployment and beyond.
• Embed on‑site with customers to deeply understand their robotics operations, workflow constraints, and business objectives.
• Transform ambiguous customer requirements into concrete, deployed AI solutions that drive measurable ROI.
• Build trust as the technical expert customers rely on during critical deployments and production issues.

• Design and implement LLM‑powered workflows, RAG pipelines, and AI solutions tailored to each customer's specific robotic use cases.
• Rapidly prototype solutions that balance cutting‑edge AI capabilities with production reliability requirements.
• Navigate the real‑world constraints of robotics deployments: latency, connectivity, safety, and integration with existing systems.
• Create reusable frameworks and tools that accelerate future customer deployments.

• Serve as the voice of the customer to product engineering, translating field insights into platform improvements and new AI capabilities.
• Collaborate with go‑to‑market teams to demonstrate technical value in customer engagements and support expansion opportunities.
• Enable customer teams through training, documentation, and knowledge transfer, ensuring they can maintain and evolve AI solutions independently.
• Switch seamlessly between diving deep into technical architecture with customer engineers and presenting business value to C‑suite executives.

• 3+ years in customer‑facing engineering roles deploying technical solutions in production environments.
• Proven enterprise customer success:
  Track record of managing customer engagements at companies with $500k+ ARR, including on‑site deployments.
• Production deployment expertise:
  You've shipped real solutions that real users depend on and supported them when things break.
• Programming proficiency:
  Comfortable writing production‑quality code in Python or Type Script.
• AI/LLM experience:
  Hands‑on experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, and RAG/vector databases in production contexts.
• Ambiguity navigator:
  Demonstrated ability to take vague customer needs and turn them into concrete technical solutions.

• Technical versatility with React, SQL, and ROS.
• Experience integrating external APIs to build end‑to‑end customer solutions.
• Familiarity with robotics platforms (Boston Dynamics Spot, AMRs, industrial robots, SCADA systems).
• Knowledge of Model Context Protocol or similar AI frameworks.
• Background at an AI‑first startup or in forward‑deployed engineering roles.

• Pure research or academic backgrounds without production deployment experience.
• Inability or unwillingness to travel for customer engagements (expect 30‑40% travel).
• Preference for well‑defined requirements over ambiguous problem spaces.
• Solo contributor mindset. This role requires extensive cross‑functional collaboration.
• Discomfort with rapid context switching between technical depth and executive communication.

• Customer empathy:
  You genuinely care about customer success and take pride in their wins.
• Robotics passion:
  Excited by the intersection of AI and the physical world.
• Builder mentality:
  Bias toward shipping working prototypes over perfecting theoretical solutions.
• Communication range:
  Equally comfortable explaining architectures to executives and debugging with engineers.
• Fast learner:
  Quickly master new domains, from warehouse operations to agricultural workflows.
• Resilience:
  Thrive in the organized chaos of enterprise deployments and emergent customer needs.

Seniority level:
Mid‑Senior level

Employment type:

Full‑time

Job function:
Engineering and Information Technology

Industries:
Software Development