--- title: 'Founding Forward Deployed Engineer at Dryft' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-dryft-san-francisco-3xh2gwmxxwn0' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-08' --- # Founding Forward Deployed Engineer at Dryft - **Company:** Dryft - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2025-08-01 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/dryft/16a68334-23db-4f99-a01d-6941945e86db ## Job description ## DRYFT Dryft builds intelligent systems that automate complex human decisions in manufacturing operations We’re a small, talent-dense team with modest roots and a love for the physical world - cars, machines, planes. Our team includes graduates from Stanford, Berkeley, CDTM, TUM, winners of Stanford TreeHacks, recipients of Fulbright & Haniel scholarships, and builders of everything from robots and race cars to software with millions of downloads. We’re backed by the founders and leaders behind Amazon, Facebook, Stripe, Applied Intuition, & others; General Catalyst & Neo, and board members of global industrial companies. Today, we’re already saving customers millions. But this is only the beginning. ERPs ran the physical world for half a century. Dryft is powering the next. ## THE ROLE This role is our most entrepreneurial. I no other role will you learn more about how to become a great founder, listener & builder. As our Founding Forward Deployed Engineer, you’ll operate at the intersection of product, engineering, and operations. 50% Engineering, 50% Customer interaction. - Design the product backbone. Work hands-on with users, translate their pain into product improvements, and prototype features yourself - ideally writing production code when needed. - Turn operations into product. Every deployment becomes a blueprint for scale — you’ll transform learnings into reusable product features, data models, and playbooks that move Dryft from bespoke to productized. - Lead full-stack rollouts. Own implementations end-to-end: from scoping and onboarding to integration and training. Align IT teams, engineers, and C-level execs across Germany, the EU, and the US (10–30% travel). - Shape how Dryft scales. Work directly with the CEO & CTO to define the product DNA, build the foundation for future teams, and grow into roles like CPO or COO. This is a high-ownership, zero-handholding role for someone who loves turning complexity into clarity and shipping solutions that just work. YOU - Product architect at heart. You turn ERP frustrations into intuitive features. You care deeply about UX, speed, and simplicity. - Sharp mind: You pick up new concepts extremely quickly. You listen. You remember the details - even of things you never heard about. - Systems thinker. You design processes that scale - in code, in operations, and in how people work. You think in data and automation. - Quality-obsessed. You hold yourself to a high bar, dive deep into problems, and care about getting it right - not just getting it done. - Confident communicator. You can calm an impatient exec, convince a skeptical IT leader, and still keep humor in the room. - Down-to-earth & relatable. You bond with shop-floor operators as easily as with boardroom execs. - Fluent German & English speaker. Our customers are global, and you’ll move between San Francisco, the US Midwest, Mexico and the heart of German manufacturing. ## TECH STACK - FE (TypeScript): React, Chakra UI v3, TanStack Router, TanStack Query, Vite - BE (Python): FastAPI with Pydantic v2, SQLModel, Postgres with pgvector, dagster - AI: Pydantic AI, Langfuse ## About Dryft ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Dryft builds artificial intelligence that mimics, optimizes, and automates complex human decisions in manufacturing operations, essentially building the next generation of ERP systems. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage, $5M total funding) - **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States (with presence in Germany and Greece) - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Anna-Julia Storch (CEO) and Leonie Freisinger (CTO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: AI for manufacturing operations; industrial software. - **Target customers**: B2B – manufacturing companies (SMB to enterprise). - **Mission or purpose statement**: "We combine agent-based intelligence with mathematical optimization to build what comes after ERPs: systems that think, act, and adapt autonomously across manufacturing operations." ## Products & Services - **Dryft AI Platform**: An AI-powered system that uses agents and mathematical optimization to autonomously handle complex manufacturing decisions such as supplier follow-ups, inventory management, safety stock adjustments, and late-item alerts. It integrates with existing data (inventory, orders) and acts as an autonomous co-pilot for manufacturing operations. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company). - **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $5.0M (Seed round, November 2025). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Led by General Catalyst; investors include Ali Partovi (founder, Neo; co-founder Code.org), Jeannette zu Fürstenberg (Managing Director, General Catalyst), Jeff Wilke (former CEO Amazon Consumer), Steve Blank, Claire Hughes Johnson, and others. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount grew from ~1 to 12 in a year (+1,100% YoY). - Active job postings for 4 open positions (Founding Forward Deployed Engineer, Full-Stack Engineering Intern, Founding Full-Stack Engineer, Founding Design Engineer). - Monthly website visits ~9,475 (73% US, 27% Germany). - Team members span three countries and backgrounds from Stanford, MIT, Porsche, and manufacturing companies. ## Competitive Advantages - **AI + Mathematical Optimization**: Dryft uniquely combines agent-based AI with traditional optimization (operations research), creating a hybrid that can both learn and mathematically guarantee good decisions. - **Deep Manufacturing Domain Expertise**: Founders and team have hands-on experience in manufacturing (Leonie worked on Porsche Taycan predictive controllers; Anna-Julia worked with Siemens' AI Lab on the “factory of the future”). - **Founder-Market Fit**: Both founders are technical (MS in Data Science from Stanford) and have spent thousands of hours with manufacturers co-developing the product. - **Backed by Top-Tier Investors**: General Catalyst and a roster of prominent individuals (Ali Partovi, Jeff Wilke) signal strong confidence. ## Strategic Focus - **Replace legacy ERPs** with autonomous, AI-native systems for manufacturing. - **Hire a small, elite technical team** to build and deploy the first product version. - **Scale from manufacturing operations** to broader industrial decision-making. - **International presence**: Already has team members in Germany and Greece, suggesting a pan-European talent strategy. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: "All technical team" with a sense of urgency and taste for great products. Values include building everything from robots, PCBs, and race cars to software. - **Remote/Hybrid/Office**: Roles are listed as “San Francisco” – likely onsite but open to relocation support. - **Perks**: "We support Visa & Relocation" – actively hiring international talent. - **Engineering Culture**: Early‑stage startup (founded 2024) with opportunity to shape the product and architecture. Team includes people from physical intelligence, Stanford, MIT, and manufacturing backgrounds. - **Growth Opportunity**: Joining at “Day 0” – chance to be a founding engineer in a well-funded startup tackling a 50‑year‑old industry problem. ## Sources 1. [dryft.ai](https://dryft.ai/) 2. [dryft.ai/careers](https://dryft.ai/careers) 3. [LinkedIn - Dryft](https://www.linkedin.com/company/dryft-hq) 4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/dryft](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/dryft) ## Other roles at Dryft - [Full-Stack Engineering Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/full-stack-engineering-intern-dryft-san-francisco-tws8ybapg7cc) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-design-engineer-dryft-san-francisco-2bv5x5hqdz05) — San Francisco, CA - [Open Application](https://feeny.ai/job/open-application-dryft-san-francisco-2wyxf5ej2p3t) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Full-Stack Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-full-stack-engineer-dryft-san-francisco-t2xbt360hmpa) — San Francisco, CA - [Founding Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-docebo-toronto-33d62zxh16yf) — Toronto, Canada - [Founding Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-alloy-new-york-w3z4989chq93) — New York, NY - [Founding Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-jampack-ai-new-york-91v1zzr8024w) — New York, NY - [Founding Forward Deployed Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/founding-forward-deployed-engineer-emanate-san-francisco-ewf095xs80z6) — San Francisco, CA