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Encord is the universal data layer for AI, helping 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. The platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle. The company is backed by $60M in Series C funding and trusted by customers including Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, and Zipline.
As a Forward Deployed Software Engineer (FDSE), you will be an engineering-first technical owner who takes the Encord platform into strategic customer environments. You'll work directly with users and their engineering teams to understand complex problems, make system design decisions, and build production software that solves them.
Key responsibilities include:
- Design and build production software for complex data, ML, and application environments
- Own system design decisions for deployments, balancing correctness, scalability, performance, and speed
- Work directly with customers and their engineering teams to understand ambiguous problems and define technical solutions
- Build across the full stack: APIs, data workflows, backend systems, and product-facing functionality
- Own deployments from technical scoping through implementation, rollout, and iteration
- Turn recurring customer problems into reusable tooling and product capabilities
- Debug complex production issues across reliability, performance, and data flow
- Communicate technical decisions and trade-offs to technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Operate with high autonomy and own problems end to end
- Feed deployment insights back into Product and Engineering to help shape the FDSE function
As an early member of the Forward Deployed team, you'll have outsized impact on shaping this critical engineering function at Encord. You'll work hands-on across the stack while operating autonomously, defining the right technical approach with limited guidance, building trusted relationships with users, and directly influencing the product and engineering roadmap.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 4+ years of software engineering experience with strong CS fundamentals
- Experience building production software across the stack (product-facing applications, APIs, backend services, data workflows)
- Strong system design judgment and experience making architecture decisions for complex software
- Strong coding skills in a modern language; Python is a plus
- Evidence of owning technical problems end to end, from design through production
- Strong product judgment, technical communication, and stakeholder management skills
- Experience working directly with users, customers, or external engineering teams (a plus)
- Bonus: experience in a high-growth startup, developer platform, or ML/data product environment
