Founding Forward Deployed Engineer, AI SaaS / Federal

AutogenAI is a leader in generative AI SaaS, transforming how organizations draft and optimize winning proposals through cutting-edge natural language processing technology. We are one of the fastest-growing AI companies in the world, expanding rapidly to meet the increasing demand for AI-driven solutions across industries. 

Our innovation stems from a belief that language AI technology will revolutionize business communication over the next decade. We empower our clients to grow faster and more efficiently by delivering AI language engines customized to their needs that save time, improve content quality, and increase win rates in highly competitive markets.  

AutogenAI is a company where everyone can have a career-defining experience and success is achieved by fostering a culture where innovation and ambition thrive. As we scale, passionate professionals are invited to join our journey of innovation, helping shape the future of AI-powered business solutions. 

🧠 This role genuinely sits in the middle of real technical work, direct customer interaction and actual business impact. 

🔧 Unlike a standard FDE role, you won't be deployed to one client pushing out custom work. You'll find solutions by interacting with a range of clients and prospects, building POCs and features that impact the product as a whole.

🌎 We're hiring a Senior AI Engineer to be our engineering presence on the ground in the US — someone who sits alongside our US Sales and Customer Success teams, builds fast, and turns a prospect's problem into a working demo while the deal is still live.

This is a hands-on building role, not a pre-sales advisory one. When a sales conversation hinges on a capability we don't quite have yet, you build a working version of it in hours or days, so the team can show it, test it, and win on it. When an idea proves itself, you work with our UK engineering squads to turn the prototype into something we ship. You'll be the person who makes "let me show you" the answer instead of "that's on the roadmap".

You'll work US hours, joining customer and prospect calls, holding technical and security conversations credibly, and feeding what you learn in the field back into the product. The role deliberately sits outside our normal sprint planning so you can move at the speed deals move. Because many of our US customers are federal contractors, you'll also be one of a small US-based group able to work inside our FedRAMP environment, helping support federal deployments and sharing the on-call rota. You'll join an ambitious, fast-moving team working on deeply meaningful technical challenges in the AI space, with a lot of latitude to shape a brand-new role.

📍This role is preferably based in the Northern Virginia/DC Metro GovCon corridor, including Tysons, Reston, Herndon, Chantilly, Arlington, Fairfax, and the surrounding DC market. NYC may be considered for an otherwise exceptional candidate. Travel should be oriented primarily toward customer or prospect meetings in the DC-area, with periodic travel to the Midtown NYC office as needed. 

• Rapid Prototyping: Build small, high-impact, demoable features fast — against direct sales, CS, or customer pain — so the team can validate an idea in front of a prospect rather than promise it.
• Engineering Presence in the Field: Be the credible technical voice on prospect and customer calls in US hours, covering capability, integration, and security questions, and pulling in deeper specialists when needed.
• Productionisation: Once a prototype proves its value, partner with the relevant UK squad to turn it into a robust, supported part of the product.
• Feedback Loop: Capture what you see and hear in the field and feed it back to Product and Engineering as concrete, prioritisable signal.
• Test-and-Play Support: Build and tailor working environments and features for trials and proofs of concept that improve win rates.
• Federal Support: As one of a small US-based group cleared to work inside the FedRAMP environment, contribute to federal deployment support and the on-call rota alongside our DevSecOps and backend engineers.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with US Sales and CS, the US platform/DevSecOps engineers, and UK product squads.

• Strong, Fast, Pragmatic Build: You can stand up a working full-stack feature quickly and judge the right bar for the moment.
• Customer Credibility: You can hold your own in a room with a prospect's technical and security people, and you enjoy it.
• Independence and Judgement: You're comfortable working outside a fixed roadmap, deciding what's worth building, and prioritising against commercial impact without close direction.
• Collaborative Instinct: You bridge naturally between commercial teams and engineering, and bring validated ideas back into the core product rather than building a silo.
• Resilience in Ambiguity: Comfortable operating without detailed specifications and iterating through feedback in a fast-moving environment.

• Experience: 5+ years in software engineering, with demonstrable experience building and shipping features fast, ideally in a fast-paced or start-up environment.
• Customer-Facing Background: Prior experience in a forward deployed engineer, solutions engineer, sales engineer, or founding/early-engineer role at a B2B software company.
• Work Authorization: US Citizen, plus background check (required for our federal compliance environment).
• Location: This role will be based in Washington or the DC beltway. You will have regular in person contact with our clients and periodic visits to our midtown NYC office to collaborate with peers.
• On-Call: Willing to share the US federal on-call rota alongside our DevSecOps and backend engineers.

🇺🇸 We are only able to consider applications from US Citizens or Green card holders

• Candidates with these experiences will be strongly prioritised:

  • Production LLM Experience: Hands-on experience building and shipping LLM-powered features in production.
  • Demo and POC Craft: A track record of building things that won deals, with examples you can talk through.
  • GovCon / Federal Familiarity: Understanding of US public-sector procurement, GovCon workflows, or regulated-environment requirements (FedRAMP, GSA, and similar).
  • Prompt Engineering and Context Techniques: Practical grasp of prompt engineering, RAG, and related techniques for getting reliable behaviour out of LLMs.
  • Stack Familiarity: Comfort with our TypeScript stack (Express, NestJS, React); Python a bonus.

These aren’t just principles we print and forget – they’re how we work, how we treat each other, and how we deliver for our customers. They shape the company we are, and the one we aspire to become.

• Customers, Always: Everything starts with our customers. We walk in their shoes, speak their language, and build for their delight and success. We win when they win.
• Make It Happen: We move fast and take ownership. No waiting, no red tape – just action, urgency, and focus on outcomes. We ask for forgiveness, not permission.
• Learn and Invent: We stay curious. We learn what we can from past masters - and make up the rest. Change is constant, and so is our growth.
• Act Like Owners: Titles don’t solve problems - people do. We own challenges, break the rules when it’s necessary, and focus on what matters.
• Turn It Up to 11: There is no “Good enough”. We raise the bar, push boundaries, and keep building. There’s always a next level.
• Lead With Respect: We listen first, speak honestly, and value every perspective. Integrity, follow-through, and kindness matter.
• Build Trust Through Transparency: We default to openness. We give feedback, share information, and assume positive intent - no secrets, no silos.

AutogenAI is an merit-based equal opportunity employer, drug-free workplace, and complies with ADA regulations as applicable.