Forward Deployed Engineer

About the role

Quadric is redefining edge AI with the industry's first General Purpose Neural Processing Unit (GPNPU), enabling developers to run both neural network inference and conventional C++ code on a single programmable architecture. Our technology powers intelligent edge devices across automotive, industrial, robotics, and embedded systems. Founded in 2016 and based in downtown Burlingame, California, Quadric is building the world's first supercomputer designed for the real-time needs of edge devices. The company was co‑founded by technologists from MIT and Carnegie Mellon, who were previously the technical co‑founders of the Bitcoin computing company 21. In this role you will own the technical path from customer evaluation to silicon design, working on the novel Quadric Chimera GPNPU that runs everything from CNNs to LLMs to arbitrary C++ on one core with no fallback processor. You will work the full stack — quantization, custom kernels, compiler — and your contributions will be on chips that ship in cars, cameras, and network appliances. At a Series C company, each design win has outsized impact, and you will help invent how edge‑AI field engineering is done using frontier agentic tooling (Claude Code–based workflows).

Responsibilities

• Own the Technical Path to Design Win: Convert 2–3 active customer evaluations into committed design wins by getting customer workloads running at target latency and accuracy on Chimera.
• Port customer workloads onto Chimera — architect, adapt, profile, and write custom kernels when required.
• Embed with Customer Engineering Teams: Work on‑site and remotely with customer engineering teams to debug failures, hit benchmark targets, and guide model‑architecture tradeoffs.
• Drive evaluations forward end‑to‑end, from first technical conversation through design win.
• Build the Agentic FDE Toolkit: Codify learnings into reusable assets — SDK skills, porting playbooks, and agentic content — so each subsequent engagement moves faster; build applications and benchmark collateral for future engagements.
• Close the Loop Internally: Partner with engineering and product teams to relay customer learnings and shape the roadmap; contribute skills and playbooks to Quadric's growing agentic FDE toolset.
• Success metrics (first 6–12 months):
  • Convert 2–3 active customer evaluations into committed design wins on the Chimera platform.
  • Build deep fluency across the Chimera stack — quantization, custom kernels, and compiler tooling — well enough to unblock customers independently.
  • Establish reusable SDK skills and porting playbooks that measurably shorten the next engagement's timeline.
  • Become a trusted technical partner to customer engineering teams, known for translating ambiguous requirements into shipped results.
  • Help define and refine Quadric's agentic (Claude Code–based) FDE workflow — there's no existing playbook yet; you'll help write it.

Requirements

• Strong C++ and Python; has written performance‑critical code for a constrained target (DSP, NPU, GPU, or embedded SoC).
• Systems‑level performance intuition — memory bandwidth, data movement, cycle‑level reasoning — and can read a profile and know where the time went.
• High agency and independent problem‑solving; methodical and empirical rather than theoretical.
• Comfortable operating without a playbook and in ambiguity — this role is still being defined.

Qualifications

• Prior FAE, Sales Engineering, or FDE title — or startup experience as the de facto owner of an end‑to‑end implementation.
• Familiarity with agentic dev tooling (Claude Code, MCP) — or strong enthusiasm to adopt it.
• Background at NPU/edge‑AI IP and silicon companies.
• Background at inference‑focused startups in field/customer engineering or kernel teams.
• FDE experience — candidates with embedded or ML‑systems backgrounds.
• Experience at technical trading arms optimizing kernels or hardware for speed.
• Big‑firm consulting background, provided the candidate personally did the hands‑on technical work rather than managing it.

Pay

The base salary range for this position is $170,000 to $230,000. This range reflects the full span of levels and geographies at which