---
title: 'Forward Deployed Engineer at Navi AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-navi-ai-san-francisco-px34xzw2j97k'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Forward Deployed Engineer at Navi AI

- **Company:** Navi AI
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-03-26
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/navi/c0ef075b-b0ee-4f22-9d27-c8eda345ec19

## Job description

This isn't a remote support role, you're building the product shoulder-to-shoulder with the people using it. Navi is already live at major flight schools across the country, and every one of them wants more — dashboards, tools, the workflow features that make their day run better. You're the person who embeds with a customer, learns their operation, and builds exactly what they need, fast.

You're a compulsive builder who can scope and ship end to end on your own — you'd empathize with the customer's needs and show them something working by tomorrow. You don't bring a playbook; you reason from the actual situation and believe any problem can be figured out. You have the run-through-walls grit of a founder, the technical bar of a real engineer, and genuine curiosity about how a flight school runs — because that's where the best features come from. The simplest test: would a chief instructor and an engineer both want you in the trenches?

Every feature you ship makes a customer more committed, and the signal you bring back from the field — the edge cases, the workflow friction, the things nobody thought of — sharpens the whole product. You're not just serving one customer. You're supercharging how fast this company learns.

## WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Embed with a customer until you understand their operation extremely well
- Build the dashboards, tools, and features they're asking for, and ship them fast
- Gather field intelligence — user feedback, edge cases, performance data, workflow observations — and bring it back to product and engineering in a way that drives action
- Own the customer relationship on the ground — you are Navi's face at every site you touch
- Work directly with engineering to compress the feedback loop between field reality and product iteration

## ABOUT YOU

- You can build and ship an app, dashboard, or internal tool end to end, by yourself — design, code, deploy
- You learn a domain fast and can smoothly own talking to a chief instructor one hour and debugging at your desk the next
- You stay effective when there's no manual, no clear owner, and the requirements keep changing
- You're comfortable embedding with a customer and flexible about travel
- You read a room and build trust fast — customers want you back on site, and you can turn a vague ask into a clear plan they're bought into

## NICE TO HAVE

- Familiarity with aviation systems, flight schools, avionics, or defense operations
- Pilot certificate or flight training experience
- Experience working on military installations, flight schools, or in DoW environments

## WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS

Navi's technology only matters if it works where it counts — in the cockpit, the briefing room, the ops center. You're the person who makes that happen. Every site you deploy is a new proof point. Every feature you ship makes a customer more committed. Every insight you bring back compounds across the whole product. You close the gap between product and reality — and that's what lets this company scale without breaking.

## WHAT YOU'LL GET

- Flight training — earn your pilot's license and work with true domain expertise
- Competitive salary and full travel coverage — flights, lodging
- Impact you can see — work directly with pilots, instructors, and military operators using what you deployed
- A role that scales into field operations leadership as we grow

## HOW WE WORK

- Find a way. We don't wait for permission or perfect information. Ideas come from anywhere regardless of title. Figure it out, ship it, iterate.
- Creativity over control. First principles over process. We'd rather have a creative solution that's 80% right today than a perfect one next quarter.
- Update fast. Come in with a hypothesis, throw it away when the data says otherwise. Ego has no place here.
- Intensity with focus. We work hard because the mission demands it. Clarity on what matters is how we make that sustainable.

## About Navi AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Navi AI builds the first purpose-built generative AI platform for aviation, providing an AI co-pilot for pilot training that turns every aircraft into a data source to deliver automated, data-driven flight debriefs and safety intelligence.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA (also has an office in Bengaluru, India)
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Nikola Kostic (CEO) and Vivek Velivela (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Aviation Technology / Aerospace / Defense / Artificial Intelligence
- **Target Customers**: B2B — flight schools (Part 141), universities (aerospace programs), and military/defense organizations (U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School).
- **Mission/Purpose Statement**: To make aviation safety proactive — starting in training. Navi gives every pilot and squadron the intelligence edge they deserve.

## Products & Services
- **Navi AI Platform**: An AI-driven platform that ingests cockpit audio, aircraft telemetry, and environmental data (weather, traffic, aircraft history) to generate moment-by-moment, automated flight debriefs. It provides 40–50 key insights per flight through text, visuals, and animations. The platform is grounded in the flight school’s syllabus, POH, PHAK, and FAA regulations.
- **AI Debrief Assistant**: A context-aware conversational AI that trainee pilots can query about their performance, referencing their own flight data, standard operating procedures, and FAA regulations.
- **Automated Maneuver Analysis**: Analyzes intent, behavior, and performance for every maneuver during a flight, aligning outputs to the specific lesson or maneuver being taught.
- **Full Sortie Replay**: Provides a phase-by-phase breakdown of every training flight from engine start to shutdown.
- **Institutional Analytics (FOQA+)**: Goes beyond traditional FOQA by combining flight data with instructor interactions, environmental data, and procedural context, giving flight academies real-time visibility into trainee progression, trend analysis, and early safety pattern detection.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available (seed-stage company).
- **Key Metric – Total Funding**: $6.7 million raised to date.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**:
    - **United Airlines Ventures** (strategic investor)
    - **BVVC** (lead investor)
    - **New Vista Capital**
    - **Raptor Group**
    - **I2BF**
    - **U.S. Department of War** ($1.27M SBIR Phase II grant)
    - **Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University** (strategic partner and equity stakeholder)
    - **Garmin** (technology partnership, integrated with their avionics ecosystem)
- **Growth Signals**:
    - Launched from stealth in March 2026 with $6.7M in funding.
    - First commercial deployment in September 2024 with Sling Pilot Academy; now logging 55,000+ flight hours annually at Sling.
    - Platform deployed or under evaluation at leading flight schools: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, University of North Dakota, Purdue University, Utah State University, Delta State University, and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School.
    - Plans to hire 15 additional employees in 2026 (currently 7 employees), aggressively scaling the team.
    - Has a $1.27M SBIR Phase II contract from the U.S. Department of War to adapt its platform for the T-38 fleet at Edwards AFB.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-Mover in AI-Powered Debriefing**: No other company offers a purpose-built, commercially operational generative AI platform specifically for pilot training that automates post-flight analysis.
- **Domain-Specific LLM**: Trained on 100,000+ real flight hours, analyzing intent, behavior, and performance — not just generic AI.
- **Deep Institutional Partnerships**: Already embedded in the world's largest aerospace university (Embry-Riddle) and working with the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, providing credibility and a strong go-to-market signal.
- **Strategic Backing**: Backed by United Airlines Ventures (a direct channel to commercial aviation) and the U.S. Department of War, giving it a dual commercial and defense pathway.
- **Real-World Traction**: 55,000+ flight hours annually processed at Sling Pilot Academy, proving the product works at scale in a live training environment.

## Strategic Focus
- **Near-term**: Dominate the U.S. pilot training market by equipping every training aircraft with the Navi platform.
- **Medium-term**: Expand into commercial aviation, applying the same real-time analysis and performance intelligence to airline operations.
- **Defense**: Adapt and scale the platform for military use (U.S. Air Force), starting with the Test Pilot School and the T-38 fleet.
- **Product**: Continue to deepen the integration with Garmin avionics and expand the platform's ability to ingest more data sources.

## Why Work Here
- **High-Impact Mission**: Work directly on making aviation safer, with a tangible product already in use by pilots and the military. The company culture emphasizes building for a critical national need ("Your country needs you").
- **Early-Stage, High-Growth**: With only 7 employees and a plan to hire 15 more, this is a true seed-stage startup where new hires will define the product, culture, and engineering practices from the ground up.
- **Engineering-Centric**: The open roles (Founding Software Engineer, ML/AI Founding Engineer, Founding Hardware Engineer, Deployment Engineer) indicate a deep focus on core product engineering and infrastructure.
- **On-Site / Hybrid**: San Francisco headquarters is primarily in-office; Bengaluru office also exists. The company favors on-site work for its core team.
- **Fast-Paced Culture**: The careers page signals an expectation of high agency: "if ten things a day sounds like a slow Tuesday - we need you."
- **Interesting Tech Stack**: Working with cockpit telemetry, audio, domain-specific LLMs, avionics integration (Garmin), and real-time data pipelines — a mix of hardware, software, and AI.
- **Founding Team Access**: Opportunity to work directly with the co-founders (Nikola Kostic, CEO; Vivek Velivela, CTO) and shape the company's technical direction.

## Sources
1. [flynavi.com](https://www.flynavi.com/)
2. [flynavi.com/careers](https://www.flynavi.com/careers)
3. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/navi-ai)
4. [flynavi.com/newsroom](https://www.flynavi.com/newsroom)
5. [prnewswire.com](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/navi-ai-emerges-from-stealth-to-accelerate-pilot-training-with-ai-302724509.html)
6. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/navi](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/navi)

## Other roles at Navi AI

- [Intern - Device Build](https://feeny.ai/job/intern-device-build-navi-ai-san-francisco-xscsg8yw7qf1) — San Francisco, CA
- [Part-time CFI](https://feeny.ai/job/part-time-cfi-navi-ai-san-francisco-rg9jj8vsp9qs) — San Francisco, CA
- [Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/infrastructure-engineer-navi-ai-san-francisco-jc3wsjez8qm6) — San Francisco, CA
- [Founding Go-to-Market Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-go-to-market-lead-navi-ai-san-francisco-dfrx47rngsm4) — San Francisco, CA
- [Business Development Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/business-development-lead-navi-ai-san-francisco-0h8z796s0x6q) — San Francisco, CA
- [Founding Hardware Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-hardware-engineer-navi-ai-san-francisco-w69bj0taaqav) — San Francisco, CA
- [ML/AI Founding Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/ml-ai-founding-engineer-navi-ai-san-francisco-r77ng00bz1df) — San Francisco, CA
- [Founding Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-software-engineer-navi-ai-san-francisco-akpvm8bmqk5e) — San Francisco, CA
- [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-monday-com-paris-2y8wvht9z97a) — Paris, France
- [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-monday-com-london-6fbhd14ej1sg) — London, United Kingdom