Forward Deployed Engineer
Harrison ClarkeAbout the role
Role: Forward Deployed Engineer - Automotive AI
Location: San Mateo, CA
Compensation: up to $220k base (depending on experience)
Harrison Clarke are partnered with a well-funded AI company building an agentic AI system designed to operate as a teammate inside engineering organizations - not a tool, but an AI agent that works alongside human engineers using the same complex engineering tools they use. The company recently closed a $50M+ Series A from a top-tier VC and is backed by luminaries from leading AI labs. They are preparing to launch with new automotive customers and need a Forward Deployed Engineer to lead that deployment.
Role Requirements:
Serve as the technical lead for customer deployments, making key decisions on architecture, data integrations, and user experience
Lead discovery sessions with customer engineering teams, translate their challenges into AI use cases, and design how the product integrates into their workflows
Build end-to-end AI solutions, take them into production, and provide post-deployment support to ensure customer success
Connect the AI system to customer engineering data sources and tools, iterating until it delivers measurable value
Identify, collect, and prepare customer data to fine-tune models; source evaluation criteria from customer sessions to validate improved capability
Diagnose and resolve critical issues in live deployments; drive root-cause analysis and implement durable improvements
Collaborate closely with internal AI specialists to develop novel systems capable of executing critical customer engineering tasks
Profile Signals:
A physical engineering background in automotive, aerospace, mechanical, electrical, or similar. You understand how engineering organizations operate from the inside
Experience shipping data-driven or AI systems to production. Python experience strongly preferred
Comfortable working directly with customers and technical leaders. You've run technical discovery, built trust with enterprise teams, and translated problems into solutions
Have integrated or extended AI systems in production. Bonus points for engineering or scientific domains
Can rapidly build integrations between disparate customer systems
Delivered solutions in secure enterprise environments
Experience with live production troubleshooting and customer incident response
Prior experience at an automotive OEM, supplier, or adjacent industry is a strong plus
Ideal Background:
Started as an engineer in a physical domain (automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, robotics)
Transitioned into software, AI, or technical implementation
Has held customer-facing technical roles like FDE, solutions engineer, consulting engineer, or similar
Understands agentic AI systems, RAG, model fine-tuning, or production ML workflows
If you're a technical builder who speaks both engineering and AI, and you're excited about deploying an AI agent into real-world engineering workflows at a major automotive company, apply below!
Responsibilities
- Serve as the technical lead for customer deployments
- Lead discovery sessions with customer engineering teams
- Build end-to-end AI solutions and provide post-deployment support
- Connect the AI system to customer engineering data sources
- Diagnose and resolve critical issues in live deployments
- Collaborate closely with internal AI specialists
Qualifications
- A physical engineering background in automotive, aerospace, mechanical, electrical, or similar
- Experience shipping data-driven or AI systems to production
- Comfortable working directly with customers and technical leaders
- Experience with live production troubleshooting and customer incident response
- Prior experience at an automotive OEM, supplier, or adjacent industry is a strong plus
Skills mentioned
About Harrison Clarke
Harrison Clarke is the search and venture firm that builds engineering teams at VC-backed startups across three disciplines: infrastructure, software engineering, and artificial intelligence. We partner with tier-1 venture capital firms including Sequoia, Sutter Hill Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Greylock, and NEA (amongst others) to place top talent into their portfolio companies as they grow from pre-seed stage through to pre-IPO. Hiring is the foundation of what we do, but it's one part of a broader ecosystem we've built around the founders we work with. We invest into the startups we partner with through Harrison Clarke Ventures. We connect founders with senior technical advisors through our VC network. We produce Inside the Silicon Mind, a podcast featuring the founders and investors shaping the future of technology. And we host curated dinners that bring founders together with engineering leaders, design partners, and potential customers. A founder comes to us for hiring, meets an advisor through our network, gets in front of enterprise buyers at a dinner, and tells their story on the podcast. The companies we believe in most, we invest in.