{"id":1101913,"url":"https://alion.io/job/laurel-seniorstaff-forward-deployed-engineer-2","title":"Senior/Staff Forward Deployed Engineer","company":{"id":452166,"name":"Laurel","domain":"laurel.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/laurel-6","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"is_intermediary":false,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":221000,"max":275000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":275000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-21T23:00:12Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-22","last_verified_at":"2026-09-23T11:22:36Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"Laurel is on a mission to return time. As the leading AI Time platform for professional services firms, we’re transforming how organizations capture, analyze, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. Our proprietary machine learning technology automates work time capture and connects time data to business outcomes, enabling firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. We serve many of the world's largest accounting and law firms, including EY, Aprio, Crowell & Moring, and Frost Brown Todd, and process over 1 billion work activities annually that have never been collected and aggregated before Laurel’s AI Time platform.\nOur team comprises top talent in AI, product development, and engineering-innovative, humble, and forward-thinking professionals committed to redefining productivity in the knowledge economy. We're building solutions that empower workers to deliver twice the value in half the time, giving people more time to be creative and impactful. If you're passionate about transforming how people work and building a lasting company that explores the essence of time itself, we'd love to meet you.\nThe Role\nAs a Forward Deployed Engineer at Laurel, you’ll work directly with customers to design, build, and deploy AI-powered systems that solve real operational problems.\nYou’ll operate at the intersection of engineering, product, and customer delivery - embedding deeply with customer teams, understanding their workflows firsthand, and shipping production-grade systems that create measurable impact.\nThis is not a solutions architect role. It is not post-sales support. And it is not lightweight integration work you will write production code, own technical outcomes end-to-end, and help shape the core Laurel platform through what you learn in the field.\nThe best FDEs are highly technical product engineers who also happen to be exceptional at navigating ambiguity, communicating with stakeholders, and turning incomplete information into working systems.\nYou should be excited by questions like:\nHow do we turn a messy operational workflow into a reliable AI system?\n\nWhat breaks when LLMs meet real enterprise data?\n\nHow do we build infrastructure that works across dozens of customer environments?\n\nWhen should something become productized versus remain customer-specific?\n\nHow do we go from “interesting prototype” to trusted production workflow in days, not months?\n\nWhat You’ll Do\nWork directly with customers and Laureates to understand operational workflows, constraints, and technical environments\n\nDesign and implement production-grade solutions across backend services, orchestration layers, integrations, and internal tooling\n\nWrite high-quality code across the stack - typically TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure\n\nOwn deployments end-to-end: discovery, architecture, implementation, testing, rollout, monitoring, and iteration\n\nDebug complex issues across customer systems, infrastructure, authentication, APIs, and data pipelines\n\nCollaborate closely with Product and Core Engineering to turn field learnings into reusable platform capabilities\n\nRapidly prototype new functionality while maintaining strong engineering judgment around scalability and maintainability\n\nTranslate ambiguous customer needs into clear technical plans and execution paths\n\nHelp customers operationalize AI safely and effectively in real production environments\n\nHelp accelerate the implementation team’s efforts to reduce time to impact for customers.\n\nWhat We’re Looking For\nWe’re looking for engineers who combine strong technical fundamentals with exceptional ownership and execution.\nYou may be a fit if you:\nHave a minimum of 4+ years of experience building production software systems\n\nAre comfortable moving across backend, infrastructure, integrations, and customer environments\n\nCan independently architect and ship complex systems with minimal oversight\n\nHave experience with APIs, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and data-intensive applications\n\nHave worked with LLMs, AI agents, retrieval systems, orchestration frameworks, or applied AI systems in production\n\nThrive in ambiguous environments where requirements evolve quickly\n\nCan communicate clearly with both engineers and non-technical stakeholders\n\nCare deeply about speed, iteration, and customer impact\n\nAre excited to work directly with customers and own outcomes, not just tickets\n\nStrong Signals\nThese are not requirements, but they tend to correlate strongly with success in this role:\nStartup experience or early-stage product building\n\nExperience deploying AI systems into enterprise environments\n\nStrong systems engineering or infrastructure background\n\nExperience integrating with third-party enterprise systems and APIs\n\nFamiliarity with authentication systems, security constraints, and enterprise IT environments\n\nExperience debugging production issues in unfamiliar codebases\n\nHistory of shipping quickly under real-world constraints\n\nComfort balancing rapid iteration with long-term engineering quality\n\nWhat Success Looks Like\nSuccessful Forward Deployed Engineers at Laurel:\nEarn deep trust with customer teams through technical credibility and execution\n\nMove customers from pilot to production quickly\n\nCreate reusable technical patterns that improve the core platform\n\nIdentify the difference between one-off customization and durable product opportunity\n\nBring clarity to ambiguous problems\n\nOperate with urgency while maintaining strong engineering judgment\n\nLeave systems in a maintainable, scalable state after deployment\n\nWhy This Role Matters\nAt Laurel, we believe the best enterprise software comes from engineers working directly with real customer problems - not from building in isolation. The insights generated in the field shape our roadmap, platform architecture, and product direction.\nThis role is ideal for engineers who want to:\nBuild and ship constantly\n\nWork on hard technical problems with real-world constraints\n\nDevelop strong product instincts\n\nOperate with high ownership and autonomy\n\nSee the direct impact of their work in production environments\n\nIf you’re energized by ambiguity, technical depth, customer context, and fast execution, we’d love to talk.\nWhy join Laurel:\nTo date, we've secured significant funding from renowned venture capitalists (Google Ventures, IVP, Anthos, Upfront Ventures), as well as notable individuals like Marc Benioff, Gokul Rajaram, Kevin Weil, and Alexis Ohanian\n\nA smart, fun, collaborative, and inclusive team\n\nGreat employee benefits, including equity and 401K\n\nBi-annual, in-person company off-sites, in unique locations, to grow and share time with the team\n\nAn opportunity to perform at your best while growing, making a meaningful impact on the company's trajectory, and embodying our core values: understanding your \"why,\" dancing in the rain, being your whole self, and sanctifying time\n\nWe encourage diverse perspectives and rigorous thinkers who aren't afraid to challenge the status quo. Laurel is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. We are not able to support visa sponsorship or relocation assistance.\nIf you think you'd be a good fit for this role, we encourage you to apply, even if you don’t perfectly match all the bullet points in the job description. At Laurel, we strive to create an inclusive culture that encourages people from all walks of life to bring their unique, diverse perspectives to work. Every day, we aim to build an environment that empowers us all to do the best work of our careers, and we can't wait to show you what we have to offer!","description_format":"text","description_chars":7813,"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":["401k plan","Equity","Relocation assistance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Cybersecurity","Professional Services","Advertising"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-21T23:43:24Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-09-22T19:21:01Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-09-22T21:40:47Z"}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":1,"expected_fill_days":24,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-09-23T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":275000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/laurel-seniorstaff-forward-deployed-engineer-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/laurel-seniorstaff-forward-deployed-engineer-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-23T12:19:28Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers"}}