Forward-Deployed Engineer (Delivery)

Location: San Jose, CA

Travel: required (as per client requirements)

About Tessera Labs

Tessera Labs is redefining how enterprises adopt and operationalize Artificial Intelligence. Backed by Foundation Capital and led by a world-class founding team, we build multi-agent AI systems that automate complex business workflows across platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, Workday, Snowflake, MuleSoft, and more.

Our mission is to bring real AI automation to the enterprise — delivering speed, precision, and measurable impact. We operate with extreme ownership, move quickly, and build at the frontier of applied AI.

Role Summary

The Forward-Deployed Engineer (FDE) is Tessera's critical link between enterprise customers and our engineering and product teams. You live in the space between — deeply technical enough to build working proof-of-concepts and collaborate meaningfully with engineers, and customer-savvy enough to navigate complex enterprise relationships and translate real-world requirements into solutions that actually get built.

Day to day, you will be engaging with customer teams to understand their workflows and constraints, building Python-based PoCs to validate approaches quickly, and working closely with Tessera's engineering team to shape how customer requirements make it into the product. You are not a pure engineer, and you are not a pure customer success manager — you are the person who makes both sides move faster.

This role is ideal for someone who is technically strong, thrives in ambiguous environments, and gets energy from being the person in the room who can both write the code and explain it to a VP.

Why This Role Matters

FDEs are where customer trust and product velocity meet. You give customers confidence that Tessera understands their world deeply — and you give our engineering team the structured, field-tested input they need to build the right things. Your PoCs accelerate customer decisions. Your field insights shape the roadmap. Your presence in a customer engagement is often the difference between a pilot and a long-term partnership.

Key Responsibilities

Client Engagement & Solution Discovery

• Lead technical discovery sessions with customer teams to understand their systems, workflows, data, and constraints

• Translate complex business requirements into structured technical approaches and communicate them clearly to both customer stakeholders and internal teams

• Build trusted relationships with customer technical and business leads throughout the engagement lifecycle — from initial scoping through deployment and early adoption

• Navigate enterprise stakeholder dynamics, balancing technical depth with executive-level communication as needed

Proof-of-Concept Development

• Design and build Python-based PoCs that demonstrate how Tessera's AI capabilities apply to specific customer workflows and use cases

• Move quickly from requirement to working prototype — validating assumptions and accelerating customer decision-making

• Leverage modern AI orchestration frameworks to build compelling, credible demonstrations of multi-agent AI in action

Field-to-Engineering Collaboration

• Serve as the voice of the customer inside Tessera — capturing non-sprint requirements, edge cases, and real-world constraints and bringing them back to the engineering and product teams in structured, actionable form

• Collaborate with engineers on pull requests and implementation details for customer-driven requirements, contributing code where appropriate

• Partner with Product and Architecture teams to ensure field learnings directly inform the roadmap

Mosaic Platform Deployment & Enterprise Integration

• Lead the implementation and configuration of Tessera's Mosaic platform at customer sites, ensuring it is deployed correctly and operating effectively within the customer's environment

• Define and design how Mosaic connects to and operates alongside the customer's existing backend enterprise systems — including data sources, APIs, workflow engines, and platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, Workday, and Snowflake

• Work closely with customer technical teams and Tessera engineering to map integration points, resolve compatibility challenges, and ensure Mosaic delivers value within the customer's specific technology landscape

• Act as the primary technical point of contact during onboarding and early production phases, guiding customers through adoption and ensuring a smooth path to value

• Diagnose and help resolve issues that arise post-deployment, coordinating with engineering as needed

Technical Skills

Python & Prototyping

• Solid Python skills — comfortable enough to build functional PoCs, write clean integration code, and contribute meaningfully to engineering discussions

• Familiarity with REST APIs, data handling, and backend integration patterns

• Able to work within existing codebases and engineering workflows (branching, pull requests, code review)

Applied AI & Agent Frameworks

• Working knowledge of LLMs, AI orchestration, and multi-agent architectures

• Hands-on familiarity with modern AI orchestration and agent frameworks

• Ability to connect AI-driven workflows to enterprise systems and data sources

Enterprise Systems

• Exposure to enterprise platforms such as ERP, CRM, data warehouse, and integration middleware solutions

• Understanding of enterprise integration patterns, APIs, and workflow automation

Cloud & Infrastructure

• Working familiarity with cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure)

• Basic awareness of observability and monitoring in production systems

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in technical, customer-facing roles — such as Forward-Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Technical Consultant, or Implementation Engineer

• Strong Python skills with the ability to build working PoCs and collaborate effectively with software engineering teams

• Proven ability to translate ambiguous customer requirements into scoped technical work

• Experience engaging with both technical teams and business stakeholders at enterprise organizations

• Familiarity with AI/ML tooling, LLMs, or agent-based systems

• Experience with enterprise integrations, backend systems, or workflow automation

• Strong communicator — able to simplify complexity without losing technical credibility

• Willingness to travel to customer sites, primarily within the U.S.

• Prior experience as a software engineer or in a hands-on engineering role is a strong plus

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