Forward Deployed Engineer, AI

Nominal · Austin, TX · 1 wk ago

On-siteEngineeringFull-time

About the role

Nominal's connected test and operations platform powers the world's most advanced hardware programs, and the Hardware Intelligence team builds AI‑native applications and agents that accelerate hardware engineering. As an AI Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll embed with hardware engineering teams at build‑partner programs, on site and alongside them, building custom agentic workflows and skills on Nominal that do real engineering work—turning requirements and test plans into checks, running analyses, investigating issues, spotting patterns across customers to bring back as product, winning build partners by proving measurable before‑and‑after results, and serving as the technical voice of the customer inside the Hardware Intelligence team.

Responsibilities

Embed with hardware engineering teams at build‑partner programs, on site and alongside them.
Build custom agentic workflows and skills for each partner's programs that do real engineering work: turning requirements and test plans into checks, running analyses, and investigating issues.
Spot the patterns across customers and bring them back as product: new skills, agent capabilities, and eval tasks.
Win build partners by proving value: measured before‑and‑after results on real programs.
Be the technical voice of the customer inside the Hardware Intelligence team.

Requirements

4+ years as a software engineer, with strong Python and data skills.
Hands‑on experience building agentic workflows: tool use, prompting, skills, and checking whether they actually work.
Comfort in front of customers: you can run a working session with senior engineers and earn their trust.
A builder's instinct for what's reusable and what's one‑off.
Willingness to travel to customer sites.
You build with modern AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) every day, and stay curious and open to better ways of working.
Must be a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. lawful permanent resident (green card holder), refugee under 8 U.S.C. 1157, asylee under 8 U.S.C. 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State (ITAR requirement).

Qualifications

Prior experience as a test, flight test, controls, or hardware engineer before moving into software.
Experience as a forward‑deployed or solutions engineer at an AI or data company.
Have turned a one‑off customer build into a reusable product feature.
Hold an active security clearance, or can obtain one.

Benefits