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Forward Deployed Engineer

OpenRouterSan Francisco Bay Area, CaliforniaGo To Market
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Salary
$220K - $260K USD
Job type
Full-time
Work mode
Remote
Posted
1 Jun 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

OpenRouter is hiring a full-time Forward Deployed Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area to help clients successfully implement and scale AI inference workflows. This role suits a hands-on technical professional who excels at bridging customer success with software engineering in a fast-paced startup environment.

Role Overview

As a Forward Deployed Engineer on the post-sales team, the primary focus is helping customers get live quickly, integrate the unified inference interface into production systems, improve inference architecture, and expand usage across teams and applications. The position requires working regularly from client offices across the San Francisco Bay Area and traveling as needed. Candidates must be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Key Responsibilities

Lead technical onboarding for new clients, driving them from kickoff to production usage.
Collaborate with account teams to define success plans and adoption milestones.
Assist with integrating the platform into applications, workflows, infrastructure, and developer environments.
Troubleshoot API, SDK, model selection, routing, latency, reliability, and deployment issues.
Create implementation guides, reference architectures, code examples, and reusable playbooks.
Analyze usage patterns to identify opportunities for increasing adoption, reducing costs, and improving reliability.
Build strong technical relationships with client developers, engineering leaders, and AI teams through working sessions and architecture discussions.
Share customer feedback and integration blockers with product and engineering teams.

Requirements

4+ years of experience in a technical customer-facing role such as Forward Deployed Engineer, Solutions Engineer, Solutions Architect, Technical Account Manager, Developer Advocate, or Customer Engineer.
Strong software engineering fundamentals with the ability to read, write, and debug production-quality code.
Experience working with APIs, SDKs, cloud infrastructure, developer platforms, or AI and machine learning infrastructure.
Familiarity with LLMs, inference, model evaluation, prompt engineering, agents, latency and cost tradeoffs, and production AI application patterns.
Strong customer instincts to drive outcomes, manage ambiguity, and build trust.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills for technical and non-technical audiences.
High ownership, bias for action, and comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment.
Ability to work on-site regularly with regional clients and travel to customer sites as required.

Nice to Have

Experience with OpenAI-compatible APIs, model routing, evaluations, observability, or LLM application frameworks.
Prior experience in customer success, post-sales engineering, or implementation roles at an API, infrastructure, developer tools, or AI company.
Experience building AI agents, chat products, copilots, automation workflows, or production LLM applications.
Familiarity with Python, TypeScript, REST APIs, streaming APIs, and common backend application architectures.
Experience working with enterprise customers, startups, or technical founders.
Ability to create technical content such as guides, demos, example repositories, migration documentation, or architecture diagrams.

Skills and Tools

Python
TypeScript
LLMs
APIs and SDKs
Cloud infrastructure

Salary and Benefits

Annual Salary: $220,000 - $260,000 USD

About the Company

OpenRouter provides a unified interface for AI inference, allowing developers and organizations to access hundreds of models through a single API. The platform helps teams choose, route, evaluate, and scale model usage across various providers to simplify building production artificial intelligence applications.

How to Apply

To apply for this position, please visit the official OpenRouter careers page.

Skills and tech stack

PythonTypeScriptLLM

Questions candidates ask

What is the geographic requirement for this job?

Candidates must be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and be able to work regularly from customer offices in the region.

What is the salary range for the Forward Deployed Engineer role?

The annual salary ranges from $220,000 to $260,000 USD.

How many years of experience are required?

Applicants must have 4+ years of experience in a technical customer-facing role such as a Solutions Engineer, Solutions Architect, Forward Deployed Engineer, or Technical Account Manager.

What technologies and programming languages are relevant to this position?

Relevant skills include Python, TypeScript, working with LLMs, APIs, SDKs, and cloud or AI infrastructure.

Is travel required for this role?

Yes, the role requires regular on-site work at customer offices across the San Francisco Bay Area and potential travel to other locations as needed.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official OpenRouter careers page.

Apply on company site