Forward Deployed Engineer at Baseten (San Francisco, CA)
Baseten· San Francisco, CA· $165k–$330k·
Role details
Competitive Compensation · Equity Equity · 100% Coverage Of Medical, Dental, And Vision Insurance · Flexible PTO Policy · Company Wide Winter Break · Paid Parental Leave · Fertility And Family-Building Stipend · Company-Facilitated 401(K)
Baseten at a glance
AI inference platform for deploying, optimizing, and running machine learning models in production at scale.
Baseten runs trained AI models in production for other companies, handling the GPUs, autoscaling, runtime, and performance tuning so engineering teams get a fast, reliable API without operating the infrastructure themselves. It supports open source, custom, and fine tuned models across managed cloud, hybrid, and self hosted deployments.
$2B+ raised · latest: Series F · $1.5B · June 2026 (valuations of $13B and $11B across two tranches) · backed by Altimeter Capital, Conviction, Spark Capital, Sands Capital
Summary
Partner with customers to architect, build, and deploy high-scale production AI applications on the Baseten platform. The role involves hands-on coding, software development, and product management tasks, translating ambiguous business goals into reliable, observable services with clear quality, latency, and cost ou...
Job description
ABOUT BASETEN
Baseten powers mission-critical inference for the world's most dynamic AI companies, like Cursor, Notion, OpenEvidence, Abridge, Clay, Gamma, and Writer. By uniting applied AI research, flexible infrastructure, and seamless developer tooling, we enable companies operating at the frontier of AI to bring cutting-edge models into production. We're growing quickly and recently raised our $1.5B Series F baseten.co/, led by Altimeter Capital, Conviction Partners, and Spark Capital. Join us and help build the platform engineers turn to ship AI products.
THE ROLE
As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Baseten, you will partner directly with customers to architect, build, and deploy high-scale production AI applications on Baseten’s platform. You’ll own the journey with customers from initial exploration to production deployment, translating ambiguous business goals into reliable, observable services with clear quality, latency, and cost outcomes.
This role is a great fit for entrepreneurial engineers who want a front-row view into how modern companies adopt AI at scale and who enjoy working across product, software development, performance engineering, and customer-facing implementations.
To be clear, this is an engineering role with hands-on coding and software development that also includes aspects of product management, technical customer success, and pre-sales solution engineering mixed in.
EXAMPLE INITIATIVES
Take a look at these blog posts written by members of our Forward Deployed Engineering team:
- Forward Deployed Engineering on the frontier of AI baseten.co
- The fastest, most accurate Whisper transcription baseten.co
- Deploy production-ready model servers from Docker images baseten.co
- Deploy custom ComfyUI workflows as APIs baseten.co
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Develop and maintain software systems and product features using one or more general-purpose programming languages in a production-level environment, with a preference for Python due to its relevance in ML projects.
- Drive customer impact by designing, implementing, and deploying Baseten solutions end-to-end (problem framing → evaluation → production deployment → monitoring). This involves working with customers’ engineering teams at every stage of the customer journey including: sales, implementation, and expansion.
- Deliver with velocity: turn vague objectives into clear specs and well-defined PoCs so we can rapidly ship well-tested services and outcomes for our customers
- Optimize and enhance AI/ML projects, contributing to the continuous improvement of our technical stack. This includes developing features and PRDs with other engineering and product orgs.
- Own products and customer projects end-to-end, functioning as both an engineer, project manager, and product manager, with a focus on user empathy, project specification, and end-to-end execution.
- Navigate ambiguity and exercise good judgment on tradeoffs and tools needed to solve problems, avoiding unnecessary complexity.
- Demonstrate pride, ownership, and accountability for your work, expecting the same from your teammates.
REQUIREMENTS
- Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related field.
- 2+ years of professional work experience in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
- Demonstrated experience with one or more general-purpose programming languages in a production-level environment, with a strong preference for Python.
- Familiarity with AI/ML pipelines and the lifecycle of ML model development and deployment.
- Strong communication skills, particularly on complex technical topics.
- Experience in building or optimizing AI/ML projects is highly valued.
BENEFITS
- Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity
- 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
- Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
- Paid parental leave
- Fertility and family-building stipend through Carrot
- Company-facilitated 401(k)
- Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.
Apply now to embark on a rewarding journey in shaping the future of AI! If you are a motivated individual with a passion for machine learning and a desire to be part of a collaborative and forward-thinking team, we would love to hear from you.
At Baseten, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, where applicable).
Why work at Baseten
- Hard Technical Problems: Engineers work on the most challenging problems in modern infrastructure—model serving, low-level GPU optimization, networking, distributed systems, and observability. This is a high-agency, high-impact engineering environment.
- High Growth Trajectory: The company is experiencing explosive growth (224% headcount increase, active hiring). This offers significant career acceleration and ownership opportunities.
- Strong Engineering Culture: Founded by engineers, for engineers. The culture emphasizes "first-principles thinking across the entire stack" and a "customer-obsessed" mindset. The employer rating on compensation, culture, and work-life balance is rated highly (5.0).
- Top-Tier Team & Investors: The team has strong talent density with hires from Meta, Stripe, Google, NVIDIA, and Databricks. Being backed by top-tier VCs provides stability and a clear long-term vision.
- Hybrid/In-Office: Based in San Francisco with a strong in-person or hybrid culture common for fast-moving infrastructure startups.