Forward-Deployed Engineer

EngineeringHybrid – Austin, New York City, San Francisco$137,000 – $207,000

About ScienceToStartup:

ScienceToStartup bridges frontier AI research and global-scale engineering to identify the next breakthrough companies. Our platform analyzes thousands of academic papers daily, surfaces commercially viable research, and connects researchers with the startup ecosystem. We help customers — from VCs and TTOs to independent founders — discover tomorrow's billion-dollar ideas today. Our mission is to democratize access to scientific discovery. That starts with creating a place where everyone can do their best work. Whether you're building our platform, supporting our customers, or shaping our story: you can just ship things.

About the Role:

We are looking for a Forward-Deployed Engineer to join our Professional Services team. This is not a traditional consulting role — you will embed directly with our most strategic enterprise customers (VCs, university TTOs, and corporate R&D labs) to drive transformational outcomes across research intelligence, platform integrations, and AI adoption. In this role, you will lead complex platform integrations, architect custom research intelligence solutions, and build production AI pipelines — all within customer environments. You'll work hands-on alongside customer teams, whether you're integrating our API with a VC's deal flow system, building custom research dashboards for a TTO, or deploying automated paper analysis workflows. Our Forward-Deployed Engineers operate with high agency and autonomy. You'll navigate enterprise environments, assess technical needs, design integration strategies, and deliver measurable business value — all while building long-term relationships that expand our partnership with each customer. You will report to the Director of Professional Services and will be remote-first with significant travel (25–40%) to customer sites for embedded engagements.

What You Will Do:

1Lead complex platform integrations — connecting ScienceToStartup's research intelligence API with customer systems including CRMs, deal flow tools, and internal dashboards
2Conduct technical assessments and architecture reviews, analyzing customer data pipelines for optimization opportunities — delivering actionable roadmaps
3Architect and implement custom research intelligence solutions using Next.js, Python, and our AI pipeline stack
4Build production AI solutions using our analysis engine — including automated paper screening, custom scoring models, and intelligent alerting systems
5Embed with strategic customers to build production applications — working within their constraints and shipping code that goes live
6Drive enablement and knowledge transfer through workshops, pair programming, and documentation — ensuring customer teams can extend solutions independently
7Navigate complex enterprise environments by building relationships with stakeholders across research, investment, and executive teams
8Participate in pre-sales activities by providing technical expertise during discovery calls, scoping sessions, and proposal development
9Contribute to our platform evolution by identifying repeatable patterns, building reusable components, and sharing insights back to Product and Engineering

About You:

5+ years of experience in software engineering with at least 2 years in a customer-facing technical role (consulting, solutions engineering, or technical founder experience)
Expert-level TypeScript skills — this is your primary language. You write production TypeScript daily and have strong opinions on type safety, patterns, and tooling
Deep expertise in Next.js, with a proven track record of architecting and delivering complex applications using App Router, Server Components, SSR, SSG, ISR, and edge functions
Strong Python proficiency — comfortable building data pipelines, ML workflows, and backend services
Production experience with LLMs and AI applications, including prompt engineering, agent development, and tool use patterns
High agency with comfort in ambiguity — you thrive when given a problem to solve rather than a task to complete
Exceptional communication skills with the ability to conduct technical discovery, present to executives, and build lasting customer relationships
Business acumen to understand customer objectives, translate technical capabilities into ROI, and identify expansion opportunities
Willingness to travel 25–40% to customer sites for embedded work and relationship building

Bonus If You:

Experience working with venture capital firms, university technology transfer offices, or corporate R&D organizations
Expertise in NLP, research paper analysis, or scientific data processing
Experience with pgvector, embeddings, and semantic search at scale
Have built or contributed to data platforms that process large volumes of unstructured text
Experience with enterprise deployment patterns including SOC 2, data residency, and multi-tenant architectures
Background in data science, computational biology, materials science, or other research-heavy domains

Benefits:

Great compensation package and stock options
Inclusive Healthcare Package
Learn and Grow — we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills
Flexible Time Off — flexible vacation policy with a recommended 4 weeks per year, and paid holidays
Remote Friendly — work with teammates from different time zones across the globe
We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed

The base pay range for this role is $137,000 – $207,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. The total compensation package also includes benefits and equity-based compensation.

ScienceToStartup is committed to fostering and empowering an inclusive community within our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. ScienceToStartup encourages everyone to apply for our available positions, even if they don't necessarily check every box on the job description.