Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

Gradial is building the AI-native system of work for enterprise marketing. Our agents turn ideas into live campaigns by executing across the tools, teams, and workflows enterprises already use—from content authoring and campaign assembly to quality assurance and brand compliance. We give marketers and creatives more time to shape brands, understand customers, and create work that moves people. We’re tackling some of the hardest problems in applied AI: building agent harnesses, sandboxed execution environments, and orchestration that enable agents to plan, act, and verify their work reliably at enterprise scale. We’re growing rapidly, winning Fortune 500 and enterprise customers including AWS, T-Mobile, and Prudential. Our $65 million Series C led by Insight Partners is accelerating that momentum. Join us to help define how people and AI agents work together. We move with urgency, reason from first principles, and take ownership from idea to customer impact. You’ll shape the product, own consequential problems, and build systems that some of the world’s leading brands depend on every day. The Role We’re hiring a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer to lead implementations of our AI platform directly with customers. This role is ideal for an experienced technically fluent builder who thrives at the intersection of engineering and problem solving; someone who wants to be hands-on with code while shaping how some of the world’s most recognizable brands modernize their content operations. As a Staff FDE, you’ll own full-stack development for enterprise deployments, working side-by-side with customers to map complex workflows into scalable generative systems. You’ll move between discovery, prototyping, implementation, and post-launch optimization - translating real-world pain points into elegant technical solutions. What You'll Own • Lead technical discovery and implementation for new enterprise customers, translating nuanced business processes into robust AI-native solutions. • Build, deploy and optimize features that integrate customer systems with Gradial’s LLM driven platform. • Develop reusable tools, adapters and configuration layers to support scalable enterprise onboarding. • Collaborate with customer stakeholders (mainly within marketing, operations and engineering) to define requirements, surface edge cases and iterate in real time. • Work closely with Gradial’s product and engineer teams to incorporate learnings from the field into our core roadmap. • Contribute to internal technical documentation and implementation playbooks that accelerate future deployments. • Own performance, reliability and maintainability for the solutions you ship, from backend architecture to customer UX. What We're Looking For • 8+ years of software engineering or technical implementation experience, ideally in customer-facing contexts. • Experienced in programming languages such as TypeScript or similar, with a strong understanding of APIs and systems integration. • Ability to rapidly understand unfamiliar enterprise software architectures (CMS, DAM, workflow tools) and build integration paths. • Excellent communication skills. Confident translating for both technical and non-technical stakeholders. • High ownership mindset with comfort operating independently, navigating ambiguity. • Demonstrated experience working with enterprise customers; particularly in content, marketing or digital operations. • Experience with LLMs, generative AI pipelines and agent-style automation frameworks. • Willingness to travel occasionally (<10%) for customer discovery, deployment and relationship building. Compensation The salary range for this position is $155,000 – $225,000 annually. Final compensation will be determined based on factors such as experience, skills, and qualifications. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for performance-based bonuses and equity awards. Gradial offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental & vision insurance, 401K retirement plan, paid time off, paid sick leave and other employee wellness programs. What we offer • Performance-based annual bonus • Meaningful equity awards • Medical, dental & vision (fully covered for employees with 75% for dependents) • Fertility & family-planning support • 401k plan • Unlimited PTO • A beautiful Seattle office with a gym, sauna, and bike parking • Free lunch three days a week in our HQ • A front-row seat to building category-defining AI infrastructure You'll thrive here if you • Learn quickly, actively seek out new challenges, and regularly reconsider “how it’s always been done.” • Want to have real impact with zero bureaucracy. • Have an innate drive for being 1% better than the day before, building towards greatness. • Embrace AI as a core tool for problem-solving, innovation, and scale. • Show customer-obsession (internal or external), high ownership/accountability, and bias for action. • Communicate clearly, directly, with curiosity, and assuming good intentions. • Thrive in fast-paced, hyper-growth environments where building better > maintaining status quo. AI Literacy & Interviewing Tools As an AI-first company, we prioritize AI literacy as a core competency in our hiring decisions. We’re excited by candidates who thoughtfully apply AI tools in their work, but during interviews we’re focused on you. This is your opportunity to show how you think, communicate, and solve problems. Over-reliance on AI-generated responses during the interview process (especially when it obscures your own voice) will result in disqualification. We want to understand your unique perspective and how you approach challenges, both with and without AI. Gradial is dedicated to creating an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and all team members can grow. We offer competitive compensation, equity, flexible work hours, comprehensive benefits, and a collaborative culture focused on learning and impact.