Forward Deployed Engineer

Exa

$130K — $160K *
Technical Services
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Several years of programming experience, capable of building and deploying production servers from scratch.
  • Proven high performance in demanding environments, such as competitive academic programs, sports, or dynamic startups.
  • Strong comfort level with direct customer interaction and high-stakes conversations.
  • High tolerance for context-switching, ambiguity, and intense work situations.
  • Willingness to travel for customer engagements.

Responsibilities

  • Guide customers from initial outreach to successful integration and closure of deals.
  • Develop and ship demos, tutorials, and sample applications showcasing product capabilities.
  • Debug and resolve technical issues spanning the entire stack, from APIs to frontend.
  • Translate customer feedback into product improvements; implement fixes when feasible.
  • Conduct frequent sales and technical calls, tailoring presentations to various technical audiences.
  • Analyze customer usage data to identify churn risks and drive expansion efforts.

Benefits

  • Premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision).
  • Fertility benefits for employees.
  • Monthly wellness stipend for all staff.
Full Job Description
About the Role

Forward Deployed Engineers are the technical tip of the spear at Exa. You sit at the intersection of product, engineering, and customer success, turning complex integrations into production wins. You need to be someone who can ship code in the morning and close a deal in the afternoon.

You'll embed directly with customers' engineering teams to solve real problems with Exa's API. You'll context-switch constantly across accounts, codebases, and industries. When something breaks, you fix it. When a feature is missing, you build it. When a customer is stuck, you unblock them before they even ask. This is not a support role. You are an engineer who sells and a seller who ships.

In this role, you will:
  • Take a customer from first cold outbound to production integration to closed deal
  • Build and ship demos, tutorials, and sample applications that show what Exa can do
  • Debug and resolve technical issues across the full stack, from API behavior to frontend rendering
  • Identify patterns in customer feedback and translate them into product improvements, shipping fixes yourself when possible
  • Run many sales and technical calls each week, adapting your pitch to CTOs, engineers, and PMs alike
  • Analyze usage data and customer interactions to spot churn risk early and drive expansion

Requirements
  • Several years of programming experience. You could build and deploy a production server from scratch
  • Track record of high performance in demanding environments, whether that's a top CS program, a competitive sport, a startup, or something else entirely
  • Comfort with direct customer interaction. You've sold something, supported someone, or otherwise held your own in high-stakes conversations
  • High tolerance for context-switching, ambiguity, and sustained intensity
  • Willingness to travel as needed for customer engagements

You might excel if you...
  • Have built and shipped user-facing products end to end
  • Have closed revenue or driven commercial outcomes at a previous company
  • Thrive in early-stage environments where your job description changes monthly
  • Are energized by the idea of being the person customers think of when they think of Exa
  • Care deeply about the problem of organizing the world's knowledge and making it accessible to machines


This is an in-person opportunity in New York City. We're happy to sponsor international candidates (e.g., STEM OPT, OPT, H1B, O1, E3). In addition to premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), we also offer fertility benefits and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.

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