Forward Deployed Engineer

Forward Deployed Engineer

Company: Strala
Location: San Francisco, CA (in person; full relocation support)
Compensation: $150,000 - $225,000 + competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: H-1B

About Strala

Strala is rebuilding insurance claims as an AI-native operator, automating intake, fraud detection and settlement across the claims lifecycle. It reached multi-seven-figure ARR in under a year and has raised two rounds from tier-1 funds including Founders Fund. The team of about 25 comes from Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford, Optiver, AMD and Palantir.

The Role

Strala is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to deploy multi-modal, agentic AI systems into production with significant business impact. You will own client deployments end to end, from scoping through go-live, as the primary contact for senior client stakeholders. The role is more technical and more product-owning than most FDE roles: you will shape what the product becomes based on what works in production, working directly with the CTO in a forward-deployed function that is still being built.

What You Will Do

• Deploy multi-modal, agentic AI systems into production for senior client stakeholders.
• Own client deployments from scoping through go-live.
• Build trusted relationships with client executives and align priorities.
• Design and evolve AI agents that deliver strong claims outcomes: prompt engineering, model integration and rapid prototyping with AI-assisted tools.
• Scope and build new features that help customers scale.
• Integrate Strala into client environments, working hands-on with their tech teams on APIs and systems.
• Feed insights back to the platform team and write playbooks that scale the FDE function.

What You Bring

• 2+ years in a role combining technical depth with client-facing ownership (agent engineering, FDE, growth engineering, or founding engineer/founder)
• A solid technical foundation in Python, APIs, cloud platforms and modern AI/ML tooling
• Familiarity with LLMs, prompt engineering and agentic AI, plus AI-assisted development workflows
• Strong client-facing communication that connects technical work to business outcomes
• A founder-mode operating style
• Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco

Nice to Have

• FDE experience at a top AI company (Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI, Scale, Cognition)
• Agent or growth engineering background
• Founding engineer or founder experience
• Backend engineering plus solutions engineering experience combined
• ICPC, NeurIPS or similar

Benefits

Top-quartile salary and equity, full relocation support, all meals covered, and productivity tools provided.

REVENUE: 17.5% of first-year salary. Est. fee per hire $26K-$39K; 1 seat(s).

TARGET COMPANIES (client (quant firms named) + suggested): Optiver, Jane Street, Citadel, DRW, Palantir, Lemonade, Hippo.

BEST-FIT CANDIDATE: 2+ yrs; technical + client-facing; Python/APIs/LLMs; founder mode; visa: H-1B; location: SF in person.