The RoleWhat You'll OwnAs a Forward Deployed Engineer at Kepler, you'll be the technical architect of our most strategic client relationships. You'll work directly on-site with our lighthouse customers, sophisticated financial firms and research organizations. to deploy, customize, and optimize Kepler's AI-native research platform for their specific workflows and requirements.
This is the engineering role that lives our core principle: "Forward-Deployed with Product DNA." You'll embed directly with clients to own their outcomes while simultaneously building the platform that serves the entire market. Your code decisions can impact million-dollar research outcomes.
Within your first 90 days, you will:
- Rapidly build and develop vertical apps on top of our core platform.
- Engage with Portfolio Managers at institutions with 10B+ AUM to scope and build workflows.
- Develop deep expertise in agentic tooling, products, and technologies.
- Own a customer engagement end-to-end.
This is the right role if you want to
build the future of financial research while working directly with the world's most sophisticated analysts with guidance from engineers who've scaled enterprise platforms from zero to global adoption.
What You'll Do- Engineer solutions at client sites: Deploy and customize AI research workflows directly where critical financial decisions happen, rapidly prototyping solutions that push our platform's boundaries.
- Drive product innovation from the field: Identify technical gaps while embedded with clients, then architect and implement new capabilities that become core product features.
- Build enterprise integrations: Design complex integrations with client data infrastructure, research tools (Bloomberg, CapIQ), and proprietary trading systems.
- Optimize platform performance: Scale our AI platform for client-specific use cases, solving complex performance challenges in real-world research environments.
- Bridge field and product: Rotate between forward deployed work and core platform development, bringing field insights directly into our technical architecture.
- Own critical deployments: Ensure our platform performs reliably for clients' most critical research operations, debugging issues across the full stack.
What We're Looking ForMust-haves- 5+ years building production software, with a track record of deploying complex systems in enterprise environments. No upper limit, comp scales with experience.
- Client-facing technical experience: Previous role as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, or similar position working directly with enterprise customers.
- Full-stack development skills: Strong capabilities in Python/TypeScript with experience in distributed systems, data pipelines, and API development.
- Enterprise integration / data integration expertise: Experience with SSO/SCIM, RBAC, database integrations, and enterprise security requirements.
- Communication and presentation skills: Comfortable presenting to C-level executives and technical teams alike.
- Travel flexibility: Willingness to travel regularly (30-50%) for on-site client engagements from our NYC HQ.
Nice-to-haves- Financial services exposure: Previous experience working with financial firms or familiarity with research workflows.
- Data platform experience: Background with large-scale data processing, ETL pipelines, or analytics platforms.
- Rust development experience.
- Startup experience where you owned features end-to-end.
Don't check every box? Apply anyway. We prioritize speed of learning, problem-solving skills, client empathy, and drive to transform how financial research works.
Mentorship & GrowthYou'll be directly mentored by engineers who built Palantir's core systems. Expect:
- Weekly 1:1s with senior engineers who've architected enterprise-scale distributed systems
- Deep architectural reviews and guidance on agent system design
- Clear growth path toward technical leadership and system ownership
- Learn by building-production agentic systems that power real financial research
At Kepler, mentorship accelerates strong systems engineers into exceptional technical leaders.
Our Technical Stack- Backend: Python, Node.js, Rust, PostgreSQL, Redis
- AI/ML: OpenAI/Anthropic/OpenRouter Vector Databases
- Infrastructure: AWS, Docker, Temporal, Kubernetes, Kafka, Apache Airflow
- Monitoring: Datadog,
- Tools: Git, GitHub Actions, Pulumi
Working at KeplerOur Benefits- 100% covered top-of-the-line medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their families. HSA maxed by the company to the IRS limit.
- Automatic coverage for life, AD&D, and disability insurance.
- Daily lunch in office.
- Unlimited PTO policy.
- Development environment budget - latest MacBook Pro, multiple monitors, ergonomic setup, and any development tools you need.
- "Build anything" budget - dedicated funding for whatever tools, libraries, datasets, or infrastructure you need to solve technical challenges, no questions asked.
- Learning budget - attend any conference, course, or program that makes you better at what we're building.
Our Operating Principles- Trust as the Default: People do their best work when confidence is mutual. We show our work, keep our promises, and flag risks before they bite. Trust isn't an aspiration - it's the baseline.
- Forward-Deployed with Product DNA: We own customer outcomes while building a product company. We don't win if they don't win.
- Extreme Ownership: If you notice a problem, you own it by by making sure it doesn't fall through the cracks. Authority comes from initiative, not job titles. Once you step up, you're accountable for the outcome.
- Production-First Engineering: We design for critical workloads from day one. Durable execution, blue/green deploys, automated rollbacks, continuous delivery with end-to-end observability.
- Communicate with Intent: Great work disappears without great communication. We push information to the people who need it, when they need it. Silence is never the safe choice.
- Earn it Every Day: Your work speaks for itself. We create an environment where the best idea wins, the strongest work gets recognized, and everyone is held to the same high standard.
- Keep Raising the Bar: Great teams compound. Every hire raises the bar, every win gets named, every person gets the tools and runway to grow.
