SECTION I · THE BRIEF
Brief #46183Updated 23 AUG 2026SAN FRANCISCO, CAAshbySOFTWARE COMPANIES
Employbl Company Profile

Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

OpenMind is a software company that develops an operating system for robots and intelligent machines.

Location
San Francisco, CA
Company size
10–50
Posted
2w ago
Via
Ashby
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Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

OpenMind· San FranciscoView company profile


Job title
Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
Job location
San Francisco
Job description

The Role

Our robots are now deployed with real customers who pay real money and expect them to work. You will be the engineer on the ground who makes that true. You will own deployments end to end: site assessment, installation, integration with customer systems, on-site debugging, and the handoff to a reliable steady state.

This is not a support role. You will write software, close the loop between field failures and the core engineering team, and shape the product roadmap with the highest-signal data in the company: what actually breaks in the real world.

What You Will Do

  • Lead on-site deployments of OM1-powered robots at enterprise customers across manufacturing, logistics, and retail

  • Integrate our robots with customer infrastructure: networks, safety systems, facility workflows, and operator training

  • Debug across the full stack in the field, from hardware and firmware to perception, navigation, and cloud telemetry

  • Build deployment tooling, runbooks, and remote diagnostics so that each deployment is easier than the last

  • Translate field observations into prioritized engineering requirements and drive them to resolution

  • Serve as the technical face of OpenMind to customer engineering and operations teams

What We Look For

  • Strong engineering fundamentals in languages such as Python, Go, and/or C++, with comfort in Linux environments

  • Hands-on experience with robots, embedded systems, or other hardware deployed outside a lab

  • Proven ability to debug complex systems under pressure with incomplete information

  • Excellent communication with non-technical stakeholders; you can explain a failure to a plant manager and a fix to a roboticist

  • Willingness to travel up to 50 percent to customer sites

  • High agency. You see a problem, you own it, and you do not wait for permission

Nice to Have

  • Experience with ROS2, real-time systems, or fleet telemetry

  • Prior forward deployed, solutions engineering, or field applications experience at a robotics, autonomy, or infrastructure company

  • Experience working in industrial environments (manufacturing, warehousing, energy), retail, or healthcare technology

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Where this role is based

San Francisco, CA

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OpenMind headquarters

San Francisco, CA

Company size

1050 employees

Founded

2024

Total raised

$20,000,000

View company profile ↗

Funding rounds