Forward-Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Full Stack

Role Description

As a Forward-Deployed Engineer at ShipBob, you'll embed directly within business teams to eliminate manual, repetitive, error-prone workflows. You'll map out how work really happens, identify automation opportunities, and rapidly build end-to-end solutions.

This is an AI-first engineering role where you'll design and deploy agentic workflows using code, APIs, and AI agents. You'll work on everything from micro-automations to large-scale AI-driven solutions, bridging the gap between operations and engineering while maintaining ShipBob's structured engineering principles.

This role is ideal for a high-agency engineer who loves being close to real users and thrives in ambiguity. You iterate fast and ship working solutions quickly, with a proven ability to translate modern AI capabilities into meaningful operational outcomes while leveraging AI-assisted coding to operationalize automation at scale.

Who You Are

• You're a first-principles thinker and meta-learner. The only constant in this role is change. You'll context-switch across projects and domains many times a month. Ambiguity doesn't slow you down. You make progress fast even with unclear requirements and moving targets.
• You optimize for surface area of technical skills, not depth in one stack. If you have a favorite framework you've been married to for years, this probably isn't the role. We're looking for someone who gets genuinely excited when they have to learn a new API, pick up an unfamiliar tool, or dive into a platform they've never touched. You'll context-switch across different technologies constantly and that should energize you, not drain you.
• You write most of your code with AI. You spend your coding time prompting Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex. You can manage multiple AI coding sessions simultaneously. You understand AI's limitations and own correctness and security.
• You love prototyping and shipping fast. You've either done a lot of hackathons or built personal projects that solved real problems. Be prepared to share them—we'll talk about them a lot. You're a scrappy builder who can take an idea from 0→1 faster than most could write a PRD.
• You're relentlessly pragmatic. You make smart tradeoffs to get value out quickly, then iterate once you know what matters. You're excited to work in messy, high-constraint environments: legacy codebases, enterprise infrastructure, incomplete documentation.
• Bonus: Founder background. You've shipped and scaled products before. You think like a founder and challenge assumptions to deliver impact.

What you’ll do:

• Embed with our operational teams to observe workflows, uncover root causes, and identify where AI agents can meaningfully reduce friction
• Break down complex, manual processes into clean system flows and technical requirements
• Own the full lifecycle: observe → prototype → validate with domain experts → harden → productionize
• Build reliable systems with logging, retries, monitoring, and guardrails for edge cases
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering when automations interface with core systems; operate independently for everything else
• Validate solutions with domain experts and iterate quickly based on feedback
• Document and publish reusable modules into our Automation Hub that accelerate future automation projects
• Drive fast iteration: ship small, gather feedback, and improve quickly

What you’ll bring to the table:

Must have:

• 1-3 years of experience building AI agents that automate real workflows and eliminate manual work
• Deep proficiency in Python, TypeScript (Node/React), and relational databases
• You've designed and built multiple RESTful APIs from scratch
• Proficiency with CLI tools. You must use CLI-based agents (Claude Code, Codex) as your primary workflow.
• Experience with observability platforms (logging, tracing, monitoring your agents in production)

Big plus:

• Hackathon experience (wins, shipping under pressure, chaotic builds)
• Contributions to open source repositories.
• Early-stage startup background (you've worn many hats)
• Experience building or extending CLI tools

Things to know

We're hiring this role on a contract basis with the opportunity to convert to full-time, think of it as a mutual try out.

About ShipBob

Every time you order something online and it shows up fast, there's a gnarly logistics problem someone had to solve. ShipBob is a YC '14 unicorn backed by SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, and Bain Capital, building the tech stack that makes that happen for thousands of brands, from scrappy DTC startups to household names. We run fulfillment centers across three continents, and we're building AI-powered systems that orchestrate inventory, automate warehouse ops, and ship millions of packages. If you want to work on problems where software meets atoms and stakes are real, come build with us.