{"id":3801157,"url":"https://alion.io/job/encord-forward-deployed-software-engineer","title":"Forward Deployed Software Engineer","company":{"id":557,"name":"Encord","domain":"encord.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/encord","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":"middle","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom","San Francisco, United States","New York, United States"],"countries":["GB","US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"ElevenLabs","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Vercel","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-06T22:00:56Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-06","last_verified_at":"2026-11-07T04:56:05Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":31,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":31},"description":"About us\nWe're solving AI's hardest problem: alignment.\nEncord is the data layer for Physical AI and enterprise, serving as core infrastructure for 300+ of the world's leading AI teams, including Woven by Toyota, Hitachi, Skydio, AbbVie and Dyna, Walden and Agility Robotics. From autonomous vehicles and robotics to sports and healthcare, we're solving AI's hardest problem: turning complex, real-world data into production-ready intelligent systems.\nWe're a team of founders, scientists, quants, researchers, and former Olympians, who’ve helped build some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley, and alumni of MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Oxford, Cambridge, and Imperial. We’ve raised $110M from legendary technology investors, early backers of companies like Databricks, ElevenLabs and Vercel, and we’re growing at an extraordinary pace.\nWe're looking for exceptional people who want to help build a category-defining company, operating with high urgency and taking real ownership to help shape the future of AI.\nThe role\nWe're looking for an exceptional Forward Deployed Software Engineer (FDSE) to join our engineering team. This is an engineering-first role: FDSEs are the technical owners who take the Encord platform into our most strategic and advanced customer environments, working directly with users and their engineering teams to understand complex problems, make system design decisions, and build production software that solves them.\nAs an early member of the Forward Deployed team, you'll have an outsized impact on shaping a critical engineering function at Encord. You'll work hands-on across the stack, from APIs and data workflows to backend services and product surfaces, while owning technical problems end to end. You'll make architecture decisions under real production constraints, debug complex integrations and workflows, and build solutions that can scale beyond a single customer or use case. You'll operate autonomously, defining the right technical approach with limited guidance, building trusted relationships with users, and feeding what you learn directly back into the product and engineering roadmap.\nWhat you'll do\nDesign and build production software for complex data, ML, and application environments\n\nOwn system design decisions for deployments, balancing correctness, scalability, performance, and speed\n\nWork directly with customers and their engineering teams to understand ambiguous problems and define the right technical solution\n\nBuild across the stack, from APIs and data workflows to backend systems and product-facing functionality\n\nOwn deployments from technical scoping through implementation, rollout, and iteration\n\nTurn recurring customer problems into reusable tooling and product capabilities\n\nDebug complex production issues across reliability, performance, and data flow\n\nCommunicate technical decisions and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders\n\nOperate with high autonomy and own problems end to end\n\nFeed deployment insights back into Product and Engineering, and help shape the FDSE function as the team grows\n\nWho we're looking for\nA strong software engineer. You have solid fundamentals and the technical depth to design and build complex production systems\n\nA first-principles problem solver. You dig into the underlying problem, challenge assumptions, and make sound technical and product trade-offs rather than defaulting to the obvious solution\n\nA strong communicator and stakeholder partner. You can build trust, navigate competing priorities, and explain complex decisions clearly\n\nAn autonomous builder. You operate with limited guidance, create structure from ambiguity, and drive problems through to production\n\nA versatile product engineer. You’re comfortable working across the stack and moving between hands-on engineering, product thinking, and conversations with the people using what you build\n\nExperience requirements\n4+ years of software engineering experience with strong CS fundamentals\n\nExperience building production software across the stack, from product-facing applications and APIs to backend services and data workflows\n\nStrong system design judgment and experience making architecture decisions for complex software\n\nStrong coding skills in a modern language; Python is a plus\n\nEvidence of owning technical problems end to end, from design through production\n\nStrong product judgment, technical communication, and stakeholder management\n\nExperience working directly with users, customers, or external engineering teams is a plus\n\nBonus: experience in a high-growth startup, developer platform, or ML/data product environment\n\nWhy Encord\nCompetitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup\n\nClear, accelerated growth opportunities as the company scales rapidly\n\nStrong in-person culture: 4 days/week\n\nDaily team lunches & dinners\n\nAnnual learning & development budget\n\nComprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage\n\nUS employees: 18 paid vacation days plus US public holidays\n\nUK employees: 25 paid vacation days plus UK public holidays\n\nFrequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe\n\nBi-annual company offsites & monthly socials\n\nOperating principles\nHigh agency\nYou see something broken, you fix it or find the person who can. We celebrate the people who solve 90% of a problem before anyone asks.\nBuild with care & urgency\nWe bear-hug the customer. Former founders and people from fast-moving, high-stakes environments thrive here.\nSelf-aware & hungry\nWe stay warm, self-aware, and genuinely hungry. We elevate our peers, and ego doesn't last long.\nInvent in real time\nWe move toward the ambiguity. We’re pragmatic, resourceful, energized by the fact that there's no playbook.\nIf you're looking to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who push you to be better, we'd love to meet you.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5891,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":4,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Growth opportunities"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["MLOps","AI Training Data & Annotation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-05T11:32:21Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":77,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.854,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":30,"expected_fill_days":69,"reasons":["conf:3","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-11-06T05:58:05Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/encord-forward-deployed-software-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/encord-forward-deployed-software-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-07T05:48:50Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":14088,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-08T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":557},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=557"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fencord-forward-deployed-software-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fencord-forward-deployed-software-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fencord-forward-deployed-software-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/encord-forward-deployed-software-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fencord-forward-deployed-software-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3801157}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"encord.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3801157},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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