Forward Deployed Software Engineer

ABOUT MECKA AI Mecka AI is building the data infrastructure layer for robotics and embodied AI. We design and operate global systems for data capture, data labeling, and hardware-enabled workflows used by leading AI labs and robotics companies to train and validate humanoid and embodied AI systems. We work closely with frontier robotics teams to bridge real-world data, simulation, learning-based systems, and deployed hardware. THE ROLE We're hiring a Forward Deployed Software Engineer to sit at the frontier with our most important customers — technical enough to be trusted directly with a sophisticated customer's engineering team, and the generalist who figures out what they need and owns how we deliver it. This is a mid-to-staff, high-autonomy role: less classic Sales Engineer, more Palantir-style Forward Deployed Engineer, judged on ownership and delivery quality rather than a narrow job description. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Be the technical point of contact for a set of customers, credible enough to sit across from their engineering team and be trusted immediately. - Understand what each customer is trying to accomplish, determine what data or delivery they need, and own how we build and ship it. - Hold a strong customer support and SLA bar — respond fast, communicate clearly, close the loop on every delivery. - Own the full delivery process end to end, not just your own piece of it, and find what's slow, fragile, or manual. - Turn what you learn on one customer into durable improvements — tooling, process, standards — that make the next delivery faster and more reliable. - Work directly with engineering, data, and operations teams to unblock delivery and escalate what needs to change upstream. - Bring outside-in judgment back to the product and delivery systems — you're often the first to see where they break under real customer conditions. WHAT YOU BRING Must-have: - Technical depth sufficient to earn credibility directly with a sophisticated customer's engineering team — not a demo-only or slide-based technical presence. - Direct, hands-on experience owning a customer or partner relationship end-to-end, not just supporting one from behind a ticket queue. - High agency and a strong generalist bent — comfortable moving across data, delivery process, and whatever else the problem needs, taking on problems beyond your defined scope without waiting to be asked. Nice-to-have: - Startup experience, ideally as a founding or early engineer. - A track record of improving how a team delivers, not just delivering yourself. A NOTE ON APPLYING Studies show women and candidates from underrepresented groups often only apply when they meet 100% of the listed qualifications, while others apply after meeting 60%. If you don't check every box above but believe you can do the job, we encourage you to apply — we're looking for capability and trajectory, not a perfect checklist match. Inclusive Hiring at Mecka We are committed to…