Forward Deployed Engineer

Forward Deployed Engineer

Company: XDOF
Location: San Mateo, CA (in office 5 days per week)
Compensation: $230,000 - $310,000 + competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: Confirm with recruiter

About XDOF

XDOF is the data engine for physical AI and embodied intelligence. It delivers high-quality teleoperation, on-embodiment and egocentric training data to frontier AI labs and humanoid robotics companies, paired with its own hardware ecosystem and a model fine-tuning loop.

Founded in 2023, XDOF has raised $17M and has about 20 people.

The Role

XDOF is hiring a founding Forward Deployed Engineer (5-8 years) to own end-to-end delivery for its most strategic robotics and frontier AI customers. Think Palantir-style FDE: deeply technical, high agency and excellent with customers.

What You Will Do

• Own end-to-end data delivery for strategic customers: pipeline understanding, data quality, scoping and QA before shipping.
• Act as first technical responder for your accounts and resolve most issues without escalation.
• Translate complex technical concepts for sophisticated robotics and AI customers.
• Turn recurring customer needs into product and pipeline improvements and reusable playbooks.
• Grow the forward-deployed motion into platform integrations and model fine-tuning and evaluation services.

What You Bring

• 5-8 years as a customer-facing software engineer or forward deployed engineer
• Strong Python and data pipeline experience
• Ability to work independently in ambiguity
• Excellent customer communication

Nice to Have

• Robotics or AI/ML data experience
• Familiarity with MCAP or HDF5 data formats

Tech Stack

Python, data pipelines, robotics, AI/ML, MCAP, HDF5

REVENUE: 15.39% of first-year salary. Est. fee per hire $35K-$48K; 2 seat(s) = up to $83K if all filled.

TARGET COMPANIES (suggested): Physical Intelligence, Skild AI, Figure, Covariant, Palantir, Anduril, Scale AI.

BEST-FIT CANDIDATE: 5-8 yrs; customer-facing SWE/FDE; Python data pipelines; independent problem solving; visa: confirm; location: San Mateo 5 days. Founding FDE; low competition, engaged hiring manager.