Forward Deployed Engineer

About the role

Candidates must be located in the Houston metro. In addition to your resume, please submit your video screening.

Role Summary

You won't be handed tickets from a backlog written by someone else. You'll sit with the customer, watch how the work actually gets done, prototype in the loop with the people who'll use it, and productionize what works — owning meaningful slices of real products end to end.

We're a team of about ten building custom software for industrial operations in an AI-accelerated world, and we're doing it by putting engineers closer to the customer, not further away. The work you own is visible, the decisions you make carry, and the people who depend on what you build will know your name.

Who We Are

Valorian builds intelligence systems for industrial operations by integrating data, systems, and AI — designed around how work actually gets done in the field. Our customers run petrochemical plants and field operations where visibility, safety, and efficiency have real consequences. Our products replace spreadsheets, paper, and disconnected systems with software shaped around their actual workflow, built on a shared platform: React/Next.js and TypeScript on the front end, Node.js/Fastify APIs, PostgreSQL via Prisma, and Azure underneath.

What You'll Own

Time with customers every week — working sessions, demos, and on-site visits — observing real workflows and turning what you learn into well-scoped tickets with crisp acceptance criteria.

Fast prototypes built alongside customers and our Product/Project Managers to validate direction, then hardened into production-grade features.

Vertical slices end to end: React/Next.js (TypeScript) front ends, Node.js/Fastify APIs, and PostgreSQL via Prisma.

The written record the team inherits: workflow and integration diagrams, data models, decision rules, and Architecture Decision Records for the calls that matter.

Our shared ontology and data models as new customer domains come into scope — reconciling conflicting sources of truth and naming things once, well.

Testing for your work — unit, API, and Playwright end-to-end — wired into CI/CD so regressions surface before a customer finds them.

Contributions to Valorian's Design System and shared packages, so what you learn on one product compounds across all of them.

How we use AI: agents as leverage across spec, implementation, and testing, and a voice in which emerging tools earn a place in the team's daily practice.

What Good Looks Like

By 90 days: you've participated meaningfully in customer sessions, shipped your first vertical slice to production, and can describe a customer's workflow more accurately than the ticket does.

By six months: you own a product area end to end, customers ask for you by name, and change orders on your work are small because you validated before you built. You've earned the right to solve bigger problems for them.

By a year: your contributions are load-bearing for the team, and you're influencing what we build next — not just how it gets built.

What We're Looking For

You've built and shipped full-stack TypeScript products — React/Next.js, Node, and a relational database — and can point to work running in production

You're comfortable in the room with customers: leading a working session, asking the uncomfortable question early, and saying so when what's being asked for isn't advisable

You can model a business domain and write it down clearly enough that a customer confirms it's right and an engineer can build from it

You design APIs thoughtfully (auth, pagination, error handling, rate limiting) and treat data models, migrations, and security as the places to slow down and think

You keep test suites meaningful in CI — unit, API, and end-to-end — rather than green by deletion

You reach for shared, reusable solutions over re-solving the same problem on every project

You're curious about AI tooling and have the judgment to tell real leverage from novelty

Nice to Have

Azure (App Service, Functions, Container Apps) and Docker

ETL pipelines and data migrations

AI-powered features: RAG, embeddings, evaluation loops

Observability: metrics, logs, traces

Prior forward-deployed, consulting, or customer-facing engineering experience

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants must live in the Houston metro.

Because customer sessions happen live, you'll need to be available during U.S. Central business hours and have a quiet, professional workspace for calls, demos, and screen sharing.

This role requires professional English fluency sufficient to independently lead live customer working sessions and demos.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. This role does not offer visa sponsorship.

Employment is contingent on a background check and pre-employment drug screening, in accordance with applicable law.