Forward Deployed Engineer (Founding Customer Engineer)

About the Role

This is a rare opportunity to be the first non-founder hire at a seed-stage B2B SaaS startup in the conversational AI and sales automation space. As a Founding Customer Engineer, you will own every customer relationship and build the playbook that takes the company from its first handful of customers to thousands. You'll work side-by-side with the founding team, directly influencing product direction and shaping the customer engineering function from the ground up.

The ideal candidate is equally comfortable on a customer call as they are writing a script or configuring an automation workflow — someone who instinctively looks for ways to eliminate repetitive work and has a genuine interest in how AI agents can transform the B2B sales process.

What You'll Do

• Teach and coach AI sales agents on product tiers, buyer personas, and pricing conversations to improve their effectiveness.
• Own customer relationships end-to-end — from onboarding through long-term success — and continuously improve demo performance and product adoption.
• Serve as the voice of the customer by analyzing conversation logs and support interactions to surface patterns, insights, and unmet needs.
• Build automation workflows and internal tooling (scripting, APIs, low-code/no-code tools) to help the customer engineering function scale efficiently.
• Work directly with the CTO to translate customer feedback into prioritized, shipped product features.
• Lead product demos and onboarding sessions with strong communication and a consultative approach.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 0–3 years of experience in a customer-facing technical role at a SaaS company (e.g., solutions engineer, customer engineer, technical account manager).
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with demonstrated ability to lead product demos and customer onboarding.
• Hands-on experience building automation workflows to scale customer engineering tasks (scripting, APIs, or low-code/no-code tools).
• Experience analyzing customer feedback and conversation data to identify patterns and inform product decisions.
• Ability to translate customer insights into clear, actionable product requirements and collaborate closely with engineering leadership.
• Experience configuring or coaching AI agents for sales contexts, including defining personas, product tiers, and pricing narratives.
• Authorized to work in the United States without visa sponsorship.
• Able to work on-site in San Francisco, CA.

Nice to Have:

• Prior experience at an early-stage startup (2–10 person team).
• Familiarity with the B2B sales tooling or demo automation space (e.g., interactive demo platforms, conversational AI, GTM tooling).
• Background at high-growth SaaS companies or top-tier consulting/strategy firms.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $140,000 – $185,000 USD annually
• Early equity opportunity as a founding team member
• Direct impact on company trajectory from day one

Location

This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area. Visa sponsorship is not available.