Forward Deployed Engineer

About Cartesia

Our mission is to architect AI that learns from and interacts with the world like humans do.

We're pioneering the model architectures that will make this possible. Our founding team met as PhDs at the Stanford AI Lab, where we invented State Space Models or SSMs, a new primitive for training efficient, large-scale foundation models. Our team combines deep expertise in model innovation and systems engineering paired with a design-minded product engineering team to build and ship cutting edge models and experiences.

We're funded by leading investors at Index Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with Factory, Conviction, A Star, General Catalyst, SV Angel, Databricks and others. We're fortunate to have the support of many amazing advisors, and 90+ angels across many industries, including the world's foremost experts in AI.

About the Role

We're hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to advance our mission of building real-time multimodal intelligence by embedding directly with enterprise customers and delivering agentic voice AI solutions into their production environments. FDEs maximize customer success and revenue by turning Cartesia's core product into deployed, high-impact solutions.

Your Impact

• Write and ship production-grade code - Design, build, and deploy voice AI systems that power real enterprise workflows.
• Own deployments end-to-end - Lead discovery, architecture, implementation, and rollout for strategic customer engagements.
  Drive progress in ambiguity - Move projects forward when requirements are incomplete, constraints evolve, or systems fail in unexpected ways.
• Deliver across complex infrastructure - Deploy across cloud, VPC, and on-prem environments while navigating security, networking, and compliance requirements.
• Unblock critical integrations - Diagnose and resolve integration failures, performance bottlenecks, and deployment issues under real-world constraints.
• Drive expansion through building - Identify new use cases and prototype solutions that deepen adoption and increase long-term customer value.
• Turn customer signal into platform leverage - Surface recurring patterns to engineering and product teams, influencing roadmap and reusable capabilities.
• Build for scale - Transform one-off solutions into repeatable playbooks, templates, and reference architectures.

What You Bring

• 4+ years of experience building and operating production software systems
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals and a track record of delivering reliable systems
• Experience integrating APIs and distributed services into real-world infrastructure
• Comfort operating across cloud and containerized environments (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes)
• Experience navigating enterprise constraints: authentication, networking, observability, and security reviews
• Ability to take ambiguous problems, define structure, and drive them to resolution
• High ownership and bias for action - you move quickly without waiting for perfect specs
• Clear, structured communicator comfortable engaging with senior technical stakeholders

Nice-To-Haves

• Experience in forward-deployed, solutions, implementation, or customer-facing engineering roles
• Experience deploying AI/ML systems into production environments
• Familiarity with real-time systems (voice, streaming APIs, telephony, low-latency systems)
• Experience with on-prem or hybrid infrastructure deployments
• Multilingual fluency or experience supporting customers across international markets and non-English language deployments.
• Startup or founder experience

More Details

In-office policy: We're an in-person team based out of offices in ?S San Francisco, GB London and I? Bangalore. We love being in the office, hanging out together, and learning from each other every day.

Visa sponsorship: We provide visa sponsorship support and assess each circumstance on a case-by-case basis. However, visa sponsorship is dependent on many factors, including the role you are applying for, and the location you are going to be based, and so we can't always guarantee success. Your Recruiter will work with you to understand your visa sponsorship needs from the first call.

We ship fast. All of our work is novel and cutting edge, and execution speed is paramount. We have a high bar, and we don't sacrifice quality or design along the way.

We support each other. We have an open & inclusive culture that's focused on giving everyone the resources they need to succeed.

Our Benefits (US Employees Only)

Compensation Competitive base salary alongside attractive equity package.

Health Insurance Fully covered medical insurance along with dental and vision for you and your family.

?? Parental Leave 9 weeks paternity & 12 weeks maternity leave

401(k)

Commuter Allowance A monthly stipend to help you get to and from the office.

Flexible PTO Take as much time as you need to recharge your batteries.

? Meals & Snacks Lunch, dinner and plenty of snacks, provided daily.

? Your own personal Yoshi