Senior / Founding Forward Deployed Engineer – Integrations & AI Needs Analysis (~0.10% Equity)

Bounty Amount: $15,000 - 16,500

Company Name: Arist

Role Type: Full-Time

Location: US / New York, NY / Remote (US-based)

Salary / Hourly Rate: $200,000 - $219,998 per year

Benefits: US citizen/visa only,Base salary: $200k–$220k + 0.10% equity (varies with experience)

Role Information

Role Overview: N/A

Responsibilities: Senior-level experience as a Solutions Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, or similar customer-facing technical role., Track record owning complex customer deployments from discovery through go-live and post-launch iteration., Strong background in APIs, integrations, and data pipelines across systems such as HCM, LMS, CRM, or equivalent enterprise platforms., Hands-on experience implementing integrations via REST APIs, webhooks, and/or integration platforms (e.g., Workato, Zapier, MuleSoft, Tray.io)., Ability to design integration patterns and reusable templates that make future deployments faster and more repeatable., Comfort working directly with enterprise customers on ambiguous, high-impact problems., Excellent communication skills; able to explain technical trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders., Proven experience partnering with product, engineering, sales, and customer success to turn customer insights into product and platform improvements., Able to think both tactically (shipping integrations) and strategically (building systems and playbooks that scale)., Thrives in fast-moving startup environments with high ownership, autonomy, and accountability for business outcomes., Excited to help define and build a solutions / FDE function, including processes, documentation, and eventually a small team.

Qualifications: 5+ years of experience in ML (PyTorch, TensorFlow)., 2+ years of hands-on experience working with LLMs (Hugging Face, OpenAI, Anthropic)., Proven experience building and deploying production AI systems, including RAG and vector search., Strong knowledge of prompt engineering, AI safety, and content filtering best practices., Comfort architecting scalable infrastructure that integrates into complex environments., Experience working directly with customers to deploy and iterate on technical solutions in real environments., Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders., Proven ability to gather feedback, shape product direction, and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams., Familiarity with Rails is a plus, but not required — strong candidates can ramp up quickly., Experience with REST APIs, PostgreSQL, ActiveRecord, and RSpec., Understanding of frameworks like LangChain or LlamaIndex, or the ability to learn them rapidly., Thrives in ambiguity, learns quickly, and iterates fast in lean environments., Excited to work in a small, high-impact team where communication and ownership are key.

Minimum Requirements: 6+ years of professional software or solutions engineering experience, including senior-level work as a Solutions Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, or similar customer-facing role.,Demonstrated experience owning complex customer integrations end-to-end (APIs, webhooks, data pipelines, or integration platforms such as Workato, Zapier, MuleSoft, or similar).,Strong background in APIs, integrations, and data pipelines; able to design patterns and reusable templates that make future deployments faster and more predictable.,Comfort working directly with enterprise customers on ambiguous, high-impact problems and collaborating closely with product, engineering, sales, and customer success.,Based in the US with existing work authorization; Arist requires US citizen/visa only for this role.

Screening Questions: (Optional Video). This step is completely optional. If you’d like, record a short 2–3 minute video introducing yourself and your experience — or share a recording of your interview with the recruiter if that’s easier. You can upload the link via Loom or Google Drive. This just helps us get to know you better, but there’s no pressure if you’d prefer to skip it.,(Optional Portfolio / GitHub) If available, please share a link to your GitHub, portfolio, or any recent projects you’ve worked on. This is entirely optional but helps provide more context about your work.,Are you comfortable building with AI hands-on and working directly with customers to gather feedback, shape features, and help launch new products? Please share an example of when you’ve done this or how you would approach it.

Company Information

About Company: N/A

Culture: N/A

Additional Information

Interview Process: Initial Call (30 min) – Introductory conversation with a founder or recruiter to learn more about your background, talk through Arist’s platform and the FDE role, and assess mutual fit., Technical Deep Dive (60–75 min) – Live discussion with senior engineers/founders covering your experience with APIs, integrations, data pipelines, and customer-facing scenarios, plus some system-design style questions., Practical Exercise / Case Study (60–90 min) – Short take-home or live exercise focused on designing and scoping an Arist-style integration and AI needs-analysis deployment for a sample enterprise customer, followed by a review session., Final Round (60–90 min) – Conversations with founders and cross-functional partners (product, sales, CS) to go deeper on collaboration style, customer orientation, and how you’d build the Solutions / FDE motion over time.

Day to day: You’ll spend your days working directly with enterprise customers, product, and engineering to design, build, and operate the integrations and AI needs-analysis deployments that make Arist feel native inside customer ecosystems. Your time will be split between deep technical integration work (APIs, data pipelines, Workato workflows), customer-facing discovery and troubleshooting, and iterating on reusable templates and tooling that make future deployments faster.

Team: You will report directly to the Co-founder & Chief Product Officer., You’ll partner closely with core engineering, product, sales, and customer success to design integrations, close complex deals, and ensure deployments are successful., You’ll be the first/one of the first members of the Solutions / Forward Deployed Engineering function, with significant ownership over how it operates.

Growth: Phase 1 (0–6 months): Learn, execute, and streamline – Go hands-on with existing integrations and AI needs-analysis deployments, identify bottlenecks, and standardize workflows through templates, integration patterns, tooling, and documentation. Help decide whether to add a tactical integration engineer or shift more execution into core engineering. Begin defining the FDE playbook (required data, guardrails, recommended approaches by customer type)., Phase 2 (6–18 months): Own the motion and build the team – Own the full Solutions / FDE motion from pre-sale through go-live for AI needs analysis and core Arist integrations. Serve as the technical face of complex enterprise deals. Build and lead a scalable Solutions / FDE team and create tight feedback loops between customers, product, and engineering.

Ideal Candidate Profile: Senior solutions or forward-deployed engineer who loves owning complex customer integrations end-to-end and seeing them run in production., Equally comfortable talking to CIOs and admins as you are reading API docs and debugging data pipelines., Enjoys turning bespoke projects into reusable patterns, templates, and playbooks that make the next deployment easier., Motivated by cross-functional outcomes (revenue, retention, adoption), not just tickets closed., Excited to help define what “Forward Deployed Engineering” means at Arist and to grow into a leadership role as the team scales.Examples of Candidates (do not contact)Yutong XueAndrew R. ReedZion BadashRyan Rishi, Examples of Candidates (do not contact)Yutong XueAndrew R. ReedZion BadashRyan Rishi, Yutong Xue, Andrew R. Reed, Zion Badash, Ryan Rishi

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