Forward Deployed Software Engineer

About us

Encord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production. Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more.

We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator.

The role

We'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.

As 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.

What you'll do

• Design and build production software for complex data, ML, and application environments

• Own system design decisions for deployments, balancing correctness, scalability, performance, and speed

• Work directly with customers and their engineering teams to understand ambiguous problems and define the right technical solution

• Build across the stack, from APIs and data workflows to backend systems and product-facing functionality

• Own deployments from technical scoping through implementation, rollout, and iteration

• Turn recurring customer problems into reusable tooling and product capabilities

• Debug complex production issues across reliability, performance, and data flow

• Communicate technical decisions and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Operate with high autonomy and own problems end to end

• Feed deployment insights back into Product and Engineering, and help shape the FDSE function as the team grows

Who we're looking for

• A strong software engineer. You have solid fundamentals and the technical depth to design and build complex production systems

• A 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

• A strong communicator and stakeholder partner. You can build trust, navigate competing priorities, and explain complex decisions clearly

• An autonomous builder. You operate with limited guidance, create structure from ambiguity, and drive problems through to production

• A 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

Experience requirements

• 4+ years of software engineering experience with strong CS fundamentals

• Experience building production software across the stack, from product-facing applications and APIs to backend services and data workflows

• Strong system design judgment and experience making architecture decisions for complex software

• Strong coding skills in a modern language; Python is a plus

• Evidence of owning technical problems end to end, from design through production

• Strong product judgment, technical communication, and stakeholder management

• Experience working directly with users, customers, or external engineering teams is a plus

• Bonus: experience in a high-growth startup, developer platform, or ML/data product environment

Why Encord

• Competitive salary, bonus, and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup

• Strong in-person culture — most of the team works from our London office 4+ days/week

• Flexible PTO to fully recharge

• Annual learning & development budget

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage

• Frequent travel opportunities across the U.S., London, and Europe

• Bi-annual company offsites, daily team lunches, and monthly socials