Forward Deployed Engineer

About the company

Cinder is the mission-critical infrastructure that keeps the world's most important digital platforms true to what they stand for. The internet has always been abused by bad actors, and AI is making it exponentially worse, driving fraud, abuse, and manipulation at a scale and speed no human team can fight alone. Cinder gives platforms one command center to fight back: to write and enforce policy, deploy AI agents against abuse in real time, investigate threats, file NCMEC reports, and prove their safety programs are working. Our customers are some of the largest internet platforms in the world. The decisions made in our software directly determine what stays up, what comes down, and how users are treated. We're a small, fast-moving team backed by Accel and Y Combinator. We care about being intentional, direct, and deeply focused on solving real customer problems.

About the role

Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) at Cinder work directly inside our customers’ ecosystems — embedding with their Trust & Safety, engineering, and policy teams to deliver lasting impact. You’ll act as both a technical implementer and a strategic advisor, helping customers unlock the full potential of Cinder to solve their most critical safety challenge. In this role, you’ll apply your problem-solving skills, creativity, and technical expertise to design and implement solutions that measurably improve internet safety outcomes.

• Transform internet platform safety by embedding directly with our most strategic enterprise customers to implement Cinder.
• Drive adoption of cutting-edge user protection measures at today’s largest and most popular internet platforms.
• Work directly with strategic customers to rapidly diagnose and solve their safety problems with technical and strategic solutions.
• Serve as the subject matter expert on Cinder’s platform and Trust and Safety practices for customers as well as industry and government agencies.
• Address technical challenges (bugs, missing feature, last mile-development, etc) or collaborate with our engineering and product teams to efficiently hand off projects.
• Collaborate with Customer Success to effectively triage and prioritize feedback from thousands of Cinder users.
• Contribute to the growth and success of the Engineering and Customer Success organizations.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems or a related field or equivalent years of relevant work experience.
• Experience as a Forward Deployed Engineer, software engineer, solutions engineer, sales engineer (or any other relevant title) in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
• Strong understanding of safety engineering and/or safety operations via firsthand experience in the space. Alternatively, experience as an early technical hire (FDE, solutions engineer, or similar) at a high-growth SaaS company and successfully partnered with large enterprise customers to deploy technical solutions at scale.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with enterprise-level customers and navigate complex organizational structures.
• Deep familiarity with AI/LLM-powered tools and AI agents, and the ability to guide customers on how to deploy them effectively in safety and investigation workflows.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a track record of taking initiative — thriving in unfamiliar situations, learning quickly, and finding ways to deliver value.
• Strong teamwork skills and a collaborative mindset.
• Excellent listening skills and a commitment to continuous learning.

Nice to have

• Experience as a product owner or engineer within a Trust & Safety, Integrity, or Fraud organization.
• Fluency in enterprise data architecture and/or AI safety.

Location & Benefits

We're based in NYC and would relocate the right person for this role. We believe in working together in person and hold at least two all-company events per year.

• Health, vision & dental benefits.
• 401(k) plan with employer matching.
• Fully paid commuter benefits.
• Fully stocked office with paid lunch and dinner.

Pay

Compensation Range: $165K - $235K