Senior Forward Deployed Engineer – Enterprise
Gray Swan AI · San Francisco · $175,000–$220,000 (stated in the posting)
About Gray Swan
Gray Swan is on a mission to empower the world to use AI safely and securely. We evaluate AI models for the leading frontier labs along with building real-time threat detection and adaptive adversarial red teaming agents for teams deploying AI.
We're a team of approximately 50 people, well-funded, growing quickly. Our work directly influences how the world deploys AI agents and systems at scale..
The Role
As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Gray Swan, you’ll design, build, and deploy enterprise-grade software solutions directly inside customer environments. You’ll work hands-on with customer teams to integrate Gray Swan’s AI security platform into complex production systems, translating ambiguous, high-stakes requirements into reliable, scalable deployments.
This role is ideal for engineers who don’t want to work on the same narrow surface area every day. You’ll operate at the intersection of software engineering, systems integration, and customer delivery, partnering closely with customers, sales, product, and core engineering teams. You’ll own outcomes end-to-end and operate effectively in fast-moving, customer-facing environments where reliability, security, and trust matter.
What You’ll Do:
Work directly with engineering, security, and platform teams to understand system architectures, constraints, and operational realities.
Design and implement integrations between Gray Swan’s platform and customer systems, APIs, data pipelines, and runtime environments.
Translate real-world enterprise requirements into well-scoped proofs of concept, deployment plans, and production architectures.
Act as the primary technical owner for customer deployments, rapidly identifying, scoping, and resolving issues across environments.
Build and extend backend services, integrations, and tooling to support secure deployment in diverse customer environments.
Ensure deployments meet enterprise expectations for reliability, security, observability, and maintainability.
Develop proofs of concept quickly to validate technical feasibility and customer value.
Iterate based on user feedback, operational learnings, and evolving requirements.
Balance speed with long-term maintainability and platform consistency.
Partner closely with sales, product, and core engineering teams to deliver successful customer outcomes.
Communicate technical findings, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly to both internal teams and customers.
What You Bring:
Hands-on experience building and deploying production-grade software systems.
Strong background in backend or full-stack software engineering, with experience designing APIs, services, and integrations.
Familiarity with cloud-native architectures and distributed systems, including AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Experience working in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and taking full ownership of outcomes.
Comfort working directly with customers and external stakeholders on technical delivery.
Strong programming experience in Python and at least one systems or backend-oriented language (e.g., Go, Java, C++, Rust).
Experience working with data pipelines, event-driven systems, or service-oriented architectures.
Understanding of security fundamentals, such as authentication, authorization, monitoring, and secure system design.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field is required.
Bonus Points If You Have:
Experience deploying or integrating enterprise software into customer environments.
Background in security, infrastructure, or platform engineering.
Familiarity with AI systems, ML-enabled products, or AI security concepts (not required to build models).
Experience in forward-deployed engineering, technical consulting, technical pre-sales, or customer-facing engineering roles.
Strong collaboration and problem-solving skills, especially in high-stakes customer contexts.
If you don’t have 100% of these, you should still seriously consider applying. We care more about what you can do than your credentials.
You’ll Thrive Here If You:
Want a role with real ownership and responsibility from day one.
Enjoy solving hard, ambiguous problems with customers.
Learn quickly and are naturally curious.
Care deeply about building reliable, secure systems that matter.
Are motivated by Gray Swan’s mission to help the world use AI safely and securely.
What We Offer:
A competitive compensation package designed to reward impact and incentivize growth. Our compensation philosophy is informed by our current valuation and recent industry data.
Salary: $175,000-220,000 a competitive equity package in a startup with real revenue and globally recognized customers
Benefits:
401k with up to 4% matching
28 days annual leave (vacation + holidays)
Health, dental, and vision coverage
Catered lunches (Pittsburgh office)
Flexible work arrangements
Visa sponsorship available for exceptional candidates
Interview Process:
🔎 Application review. We read everything; we’ll respond within 10 days.
🗣 Recruiter Screen. We learn about you; you learn about us.
🧑💻 Technical interview or Hiring Manager Interview.
💻 Role related assesment
🗣 Experience & culture interview
😇 Reference checks. We’ll reach out to 3-5 references that you provide.
📃 Offer. If it’s mutual, we move fast.
How to Apply
Submit your resume, link to your portfolio, and answer the questions on the application.
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