Altara Logo

Altara

Forward Deployed Engineer

Posted One Month Ago
In-Office
San Francisco, CA, USA
Entry level
In-Office
San Francisco, CA, USA
Entry level
Work directly with scientists to understand workflows, identify valuable use cases, drive customer pilots, configure and troubleshoot the AI platform, build lightweight solutions, train users, and convert customer feedback into reusable product capabilities. The role requires technical problem-solving, scientific fluency, strong customer engagement, teaching ability, independent execution, and comfort operating in an ambiguous startup environment.
The summary above was generated by AI
We’re building the scientific intelligence platform for the physical world, to accelerate breakthroughs in semiconductors, batteries, advanced materials, aerospace, and beyond. These industries represent trillions in spend, but are still trapped in outdated software. We’re changing that by building the intelligence layer to help scientists and engineers move faster and solve core problems -- R&D through manufacturing.

We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a category-defining company at the intersection of AI and the physical sciences. And we’re building a world-class team to do it.

We recently raised a seed round led by Greylock, with participation from Neo, BoxGroup, Liquid 2, and top angels including Jeff Dean + leadership at OpenAI and AMD. Our team (ex-Applied Intuition, Glean, SpaceX, Warp, Jane Street, Verkada) works in-person in San Francisco. Our office is located walking distance from 4th and King Caltrain station.

The Role: 
Altara’s product can create significant value, but adoption requires someone to sit with scientists, understand how they work, earn their trust, identify the right workflow, and guide them toward a measurable outcome. We’re looking for someone that combines the technical skills to troubleshoot issues and build lightweight solutions for customers with the social stamina and patience to teach them how to use a brand new technology.

What you’ll do:

  • Learn how scientists currently work, including their tools, data, language, and constraints.
  • Identify high-value workflows where Altara can make an immediate difference.
  • Drive pilots toward measurable outcomes, such as improving yield or shortening an R&D process, creating clear customer wins and accelerating deal cycles.
  • Configure the product, troubleshoot issues, and build lightweight solutions around and with our customers.
  • Teach users how to incorporate Altara into their daily work and create new champions and power users.
  • Bring recurring customer insights back to engineering and turn them into reusable product capabilities, helping shape our product and engineering roadmap.

We would love to meet you if you have:

  • Enough technical depth to understand data, troubleshoot integrations, configure the product, and prototype simple solutions
  • Scientific fluency from engineering, physics, robotics, manufacturing, semiconductors, physics, chemistry, materials science, or a related field
  • High social stamina and genuine energy from spending days with customers
  • The patience to teach people who are unfamiliar with AI
  • Strong discovery skills and the confidence to keep asking questions when others stop
  • Product judgment to separate a one-off customer request from something Altara should build for everyone
  • Comfort traveling, operating independently, and working through ambiguity

Bonus points if you have:

  • Worked at an early stage startup, founded a company, or plan to start one someday.
  • Experience working with a large variety of customers across industries and teaching them how to use new technology
  • Experience or deep curiosity in science - you can talk shop with our customers about the problems they face

Learn More about Altara
  • Website
  • Video
  • TechCrunch
  • Follow us on LinkedIn and X

Similar Jobs

Yesterday
Remote or Hybrid
Santa Clara, CA, USA
201K-352K Annually
Expert/Leader
201K-352K Annually
Expert/Leader
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • HR Tech • Information Technology • Productivity • Software • Automation
Build and deploy production-grade, LLM-enabled applications spanning backend services, data orchestration, vector databases, and front-end interfaces. Work directly with strategic customers in agile sprints, integrate legacy systems, create reusable AI libraries and scaffolds, and influence platform strategy. Diagnose distributed-system performance, implement observability, and deliver secure, scalable solutions across enterprise environments. The role requires extensive software engineering experience, customer-facing delivery, AI architecture expertise, and travel up to 30%.
Top Skills: AngularAWSAzureCi/CdContainersGoogle Cloud PlatformGraphQLInfrastructure As CodeJavaLangchainNode.jsPythonReactRestSemantic KernelVector Databases
Yesterday
Hybrid
Santa Clara, CA, USA
221K-387K Annually
Expert/Leader
221K-387K Annually
Expert/Leader
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • HR Tech • Information Technology • Productivity • Software • Automation
Leads customer-facing design, deployment, and operation of agentic AI solutions on the ServiceNow platform. Defines reusable architectures, integration patterns, guardrails, verification, monitoring, and rollback practices. Advises customer technical and executive stakeholders, mentors engineers, sets technical standards across engagements, and feeds field insights into product and engineering. Requires extensive forward-deployed or solution-architecture experience, production AI expertise, strong system design, security and reliability judgment, communication skills, and technical leadership.
Top Skills: Agentic AiAi-Integrated SystemsCpqCRMLarge Language Models (Llms)Servicenow Platform
2 Days Ago
Hybrid
Santa Clara, CA, USA
176K-308K Annually
Senior level
176K-308K Annually
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • HR Tech • Information Technology • Productivity • Software • Automation
Build and deploy production-grade, LLM-enabled applications spanning backend services, data orchestration, APIs, vector databases, and frontend interfaces. Work directly with enterprise customers to design, implement, and iterate AI solutions in agile sprints. Develop reusable libraries, prompts, SDKs, scaffolds, and documentation while integrating legacy systems, improving platform capabilities, and delivering secure, scalable solutions in production environments.
Top Skills: AngularAWSAzureCi/CdContainersDistributed Systems MonitoringGCPGraphQLInfrastructure As CodeJavaLangchainLlm FrameworksNode.jsPrompt ChainingPythonReactRestSemantic KernelVector DatabasesVector Search

What you need to know about the San Francisco Tech Scene

San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area attracts more startup funding than any other region in the world. Home to Stanford University and UC Berkeley, leading VC firms and several of the world’s most valuable companies, the Bay Area is the place to go for anyone looking to make it big in the tech industry. That said, San Francisco has a lot to offer beyond technology thanks to a thriving art and music scene, excellent food and a short drive to several of the country’s most beautiful recreational areas.

Key Facts About San Francisco Tech

  • Number of Tech Workers: 365,500; 13.9% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
  • Major Tech Employers: Google, Apple, Salesforce, Meta
  • Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fintech, consumer technology, software
  • Funding Landscape: $50.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
  • Notable Investors: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins
  • Research Centers and Universities: Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of San Francisco; Santa Clara University; Ames Research Center; Center for AI Safety; California Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account