{"id":700173,"url":"https://alion.io/job/skiffra-founding-forward-deployed-engineer","title":"Founding Forward Deployed Engineer","company":{"id":687286,"name":"Skiffra","domain":"skiffra.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/skiffra","size_band":"51-200","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":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Los Angeles, United States","San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":215000,"max":250000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":250000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":4,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-14T20:07:45Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-14","last_verified_at":"2026-11-07T20:39:06Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":85,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":85},"description":"About Skiffra\nSkiffra is building the intelligence layer for the physical world. We translate complex, real-world environments into clear, actionable data.\nWhile most AI companies focus on digital industries, we design AI native orchestration systems for the sectors that extract, move, and build ecosystems around us. We turn messy, high stakes operations into intelligent, adaptive workflows that improve decisions in real time.\nOur first proving ground is mining and natural resources, but the platform is modular by design and built to scale into any industry where decisions are expensive and the consequences are real.\nThe Role\nAs a Forward-Deployed Engineer at Skiffra, you will work directly with customers to turn difficult operational problems into working deployments of our platform. You will spend real time on site with operators, business leaders, and technical teams, learning how their systems and workflows actually function and determining how Skiffra can improve them.\nYou will own the technical path from discovery through deployment: understanding the problem, designing the solution, integrating customer systems and data, configuring the platform, validating the result with users, and getting it into reliable operation. You will also identify where the platform needs to evolve and translate field evidence into precise requirements that Skiffra’s product and engineering team can act on.\nThis is a founding-stage role for someone who combines technical depth with business judgment. You should care as much about whether a solution changes an important operating outcome as whether the architecture is sound. Skiffra's platform is rapidly evolving, and your work in the field will help determine how it becomes broadly useful across customers and industries.\nThis person will be based in Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area, with a preference for Los Angeles and will be required to travel up to 30-50%.\nWhat You’ll Do\nEmbed with customer teams to understand their operations, systems, data, constraints, and most consequential problems\n\nUnderstand the operational and economic significance of the problem, including the effect on throughput, cost, reliability, risk, or time\n\nTurn ambiguous customer needs into clear technical problems, solution designs, deployment plans, and measures of success\n\nDesign integrations across customer systems, APIs, databases, identity systems, ERP platforms, historians, and other operational technology\n\nConfigure and deploy the Skiffra platform in customer environments, including data mapping, workflow setup, testing, validation, and production readiness\n\nDiagnose technical problems across Skiffra, customer systems, data pipelines, infrastructure, permissions, and third-party services\n\nWork directly with operators and business leaders to ensure the deployed solution reflects how the operation works and improves a meaningful outcome\n\nPartner closely with product and platform engineers through implementation, then validate that what ships works under real operating conditions\n\nIdentify missing platform capabilities and distinguish customer-specific requests from recurring patterns that should become reusable platform capabilities\n\nTranslate those findings into clear, evidence-based requirements for Skiffra’s product and engineering team\n\nDocument deployment patterns and help build the methods, tools, and playbooks that make future deployments faster and more repeatable\n\nWhat We’re Looking For\nAt least four years of relevant experience in software, data engineering, systems integration, enterprise technology, technology startups, technical consulting, or a similarly demanding client-facing environment\n\nExperience leading ambiguous customer-facing technical work from discovery through a deployed outcome\n\nThe judgment and communication skills to earn credibility with customer executives, IT teams, frontline operators, and Skiffra’s product and engineering teams\n\nStrong computer science fundamentals and the ability to reason clearly about systems, data models, APIs, infrastructure, security, and technical tradeoffs\n\nExperience working with data and integrations using tools such as SQL, Python, APIs, cloud services, or enterprise platforms\n\nThe judgment to connect technical decisions to customer operations and business outcomes, rather than treating the requested feature as the whole problem\n\nHigh ownership and comfort working through ambiguity, incomplete information, and unfamiliar operating environments\n\nAn AI-native working style: you use modern AI tools fluently to investigate, analyze, document, and move faster while maintaining judgment and accuracy\n\nWillingness to travel up to 50% and spend meaningful time at customer sites, including industrial and remote locations\n\nAbility to work from Los Angeles or San Francisco\n\nNice to Have\nExperience identifying follow-on customer opportunities from successful deployment outcomes.\n\nExperience deploying enterprise software directly with customers\n\nExperience turning recurring customer needs into reusable product capabilities\n\nExperience with ERP, historian, maintenance, or operational systems such as SAP, PI, or Wonderware\n\nExperience navigating enterprise security, identity, networking, cloud, or on-premises infrastructure\n\nExposure to industrial, mining, manufacturing, energy, logistics, or other heavy-asset operating environments\n\nFrench language fluency\n\nHow We Work\nWe value speed, clarity, and technical rigor. We favor simple systems over clever ones, prototypes over over-planning, and ownership over handoffs. You’ll work directly with founders and ship things that matter quickly.\nLocation & Work Model\nThis is a hybrid role with regular in-person collaboration in Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area. We are not a remote-only company.\nWork Authorization\nCandidates must be authorized to work in the country where this role is based. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.\nBenefits & Eligibility\nThis position is eligible for Skiffra’s standard benefits, including health insurance and retirement plans, and may also qualify for participation in the Company’s bonus and incentive programs.\nEqual Opportunity\nSkiffra is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6473,"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":[{"language":"French","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":true}]},"benefits":["Health insurance","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Workflow & Process Automation (RPA, BPM)","AI Agents"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T02:42:09Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":13,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.461,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":84,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:1","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-07T05:47:08Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":250000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/skiffra-founding-forward-deployed-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/skiffra-founding-forward-deployed-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-07T21:29:06Z","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":34734,"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":687286},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=687286"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fskiffra-founding-forward-deployed-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%2Fskiffra-founding-forward-deployed-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%2Fskiffra-founding-forward-deployed-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/skiffra-founding-forward-deployed-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fskiffra-founding-forward-deployed-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":700173}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"skiffra.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":700173},"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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