Forward Deployed Engineer

Engineering the Future of Work

Athena Intelligence is engineering the future of work. We're at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence into enterprise operations, reshaping how humans and machines collaborate. Our flagship products include Olympus, an AI-native analytics platform, and Athena, an artificial employee designed to operate Olympus alongside enterprise teams.

The Role

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) at Athena Intelligence, you'll be at the intersection of cutting-edge AI technology and real-world enterprise challenges. You'll work directly with our clients to solve their workflows with a mix of our existing products and new features you will build, following our core philosophy of engineering at the edge. You'll gain unique insights into important industries and institutions while contributing to our core products.

Engineering at the Edge

At Athena Intelligence, we believe in engineering at the edge, where Forward Deployed Engineers build the first version of any product in close collaboration with a single customer. This approach allows us to rapidly iterate and validate our solutions in real-world environments, providing crucial insights that shape our product development. As adoption grows, we integrate this into our core product and deploy it across our fleet, making the FDE role the cornerstone of our product strategy and the primary source of actionable intelligence for our product team.

The AI-First Workplace

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, companies are increasingly adopting AI-first approaches before expanding headcount - similar to Shopify's recent strategic shift. This is precisely where Athena Intelligence comes in. As an FDE, you'll be at the forefront of this transformation, helping organizations integrate AI into their core operations and demonstrating how Athena can function as a valuable AI analyst employee alongside human teams.

Core Responsibilities

• Collaborate closely with clients to understand their unique challenges and operational environments

• Drive adoption on the customer side: educate about AI-first work, identify valuable workflows, and champion Athena as an AI analyst employee

• Design and implement solutions using Olympus and Athena to address client needs

• Build new features and capabilities to solve client-specific problems

• Integrate our AI technologies into existing enterprise systems and workflows

• Develop and maintain client relationships, acting as a technical liaison between Athena Intelligence and our partners

• Contribute to the continuous improvement of our core products based on field experiences and client feedback

• Lead training sessions and provide ongoing support to ensure successful adoption of our technologies

What Makes This Role Unique

Building at the Edge

Unlike traditional engineering roles where product innovation happens from a centralized research team, at Athena Intelligence, you'll be doing something we call "building at the edge." This means our product innovation happens from client sites, where you'll learn something valuable, put it into practice, and then work with product and platform engineering teams to roll it back into our core products.

Creating Your Digital Twin

Part of being a Forward Deployed Engineer at Athena Intelligence involves building an AI-assisted FDE capability. You'll support and accelerate your own work by teaching our AI systems to replicate aspects of your expertise and problem-solving approach. This creates a virtuous cycle where you build capabilities that make you and future FDEs more effective, continuously expanding what Athena can do for clients.

Real Impact Through Innovation

Our second forward-deployed engineer quickly mastered a new industry—law—and translated his insights into one of our core product lines, Flows, despite never having held a formal product or development role before. This exemplifies how you can make a tangible impact on our product evolution and see your ideas come to life quickly.

This cross-industry application is a perfect example of our horizontal approach: the legal workflows we developed have since been adapted for financial compliance teams and defense contractors, showing how core capabilities can be repurposed across regulatory-heavy environments with similar needs but different domain contexts.

Tangible Impact Across Industries

Over the course of the last three years, Athena has been deployed across multiple industries, changing the way hundreds of people across different organizations do work. Our founding FDEs have been at the core of these transformations, directly shaping how AI is integrated into critical workflows and processes.

Horizontal vs. Vertical Approach

Unlike many AI companies that focus on a single industry, we build solutions that work across domains. As an FDE, you'll have the unique opportunity to work with many different industries and teach Athena to excel in diverse contexts, broadening both your expertise and our product's capabilities. We serve clients across legal, finance, defense, supply chains, retail, consulting, media & publishing sectors, with a particular focus on regulatory-heavy industries where AI adoption presents both significant challenges and opportunities.

Freedom to Experiment

We encourage the freedom to experiment with unconventional solutions to client challenges. For instance, to unlock a high-value customer workflow that required a complex browsing capability, we rolled out a human-in-the-loop labeling exercise as a fallback mechanism. This allowed us to deliver immediate value, gather crucial insights, and refine our product direction without delaying customer deadlines.

Global Exposure

In the last year alone, our forward-deployed engineering team has traveled to Belgium, Paris, London, New York, DC, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, working with some of the world's most important institutions.

What We Value

• A highly analytical approach and eagerness to solve technical problems with modern tools and frameworks

• Experience or curiosity about working with large-scale data and AI systems to solve valuable business problems

• Ability to collaborate efficiently in teams of technical and non-technical individuals

• Comfort working in a dynamic environment with evolving objectives and iterating with users

• Strong client-facing skills and the ability to translate complex technical concepts for non-technical audiences

What We Require

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, data science, or a similar technical role

• Strong programming skills, particularly in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or similar languages

• Experience with data analysis, machine learning, or AI technologies

• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to think creatively

• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal

• Customer-facing experience and ability to build strong client relationships

• Experience building and shipping software products or features

• Willingness to travel up to 50% of the time (flexible based on project needs)

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Next.js, TypeScript, React, and Python FastAPI

• Experience with enterprise software deployment or consulting

• Familiarity with analytics platforms or business intelligence tools

• Knowledge of AI/ML model deployment in production environments

• Experience working in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, government)

What We Offer

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience

• Equity in a fast-growing AI company

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance

• Flexible PTO policy

• Opportunity to work with cutting-edge AI technologies

• Meals covered at our office based in downtown Manhattan

• MacBook Pro and AI tools needed to maximize your effectiveness

• Budget for productivity tools and resources that make you faster and more effective

• Laundry service budget to simplify your life outside of work

Location

This position is based in our New York City office in lower Manhattan. Athena Intelligence is a fully in-person and in-office team, working five days a week in the office. We believe in the power of face-to-face collaboration and maintaining a strong team culture through daily in-person interactions.

Why Join Athena Intelligence

This role is for those who want to see the impact of their work on vital industries and institutions that shape our well-being. We partner with reputable institutions and companies on meaningful projects, steering clear of superficial or high-volume engagements.

By joining our team, you'll be at the forefront of the AI revolution in enterprise operations. You'll have the opportunity to work with advanced technologies, solve complex real-world problems, and make a significant impact on how some of the world's most important institutions operate. Our team's background from leading tech companies ensures you'll be working alongside and learning from some of the best in the field.

The salary range for this role is $140,000–$200,000, commensurate with experience, skills, and qualifications.