Risely AI (YC S25) · 3 months ago
Forward Deployed Engineer | Risely AI
San Francisco Bay Area
Full-time
Onsite
Entry, Mid Level
1+ years expRisely AI is an AI startup focused on helping students stay enrolled and assisting colleges in their operations. The Forward Deployed Engineer will work directly with customers to ensure the product delivers value, while engaging in coding, data management, and integration tasks.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)EducationInformation Technology
No H1B
Responsibilities
Map out data flows, systems, and constraints directly with customers early in engagements
Rapidly deliver lean technical prototypes or “pilot skeletons” within days (not weeks) to validate assumptions and reduce risk
Ask critical questions: "What data do they actually have vs what they say they have?" to drive action
Develop robust connectors to core campus systems (APIs, batch exports, SFTP, legacy or undocumented endpoints)
Normalize, clean, deduplicate, and reconcile schemas; rigorously handle edge cases (misformatted data, missing keys, duplicates)
Implement reliable write-backs (idempotent writes, partial updates, rollbacks, conflict detection)
Automate resilience: retries, backoff strategies, rate-limit protection, error logging, and alerting
Create deployment playbooks, scripts, and infrastructure-as-code templates for rapid, repeatable pilot deployments
Develop monitoring, observability, and dashboards to track pipeline health, error rates, latency, and data drift
Document runbooks, rollback plans, and detailed incident-handling procedures
Instrument key metrics such as records processed, failure rates, time saved, and errors prevented
Provide clear dashboards and summaries to demonstrate measurable value to customers and internal teams
Maintain accountability, own the resolution if pilots fail to meet defined targets
Engage directly with customer engineers, data teams, operations staff, and executives to facilitate onboarding and handle escalations
Guide customer teams through schema mapping, data permissions, and compliance requirements
Act as escalation owner during pilot phases; swiftly investigate and resolve alerts and issues
Capture and communicate field constraints, corner cases, and failure modes
Convert these learnings into prioritized product enhancements, reusable libraries, and product abstractions
Qualification
Required
1–5 years in software engineering, particularly backend or data integration roles
Strong Python skills, solid SQL/data modeling experience, and comfort with basic frontend work (React/TypeScript)
Practical integration experience (REST APIs, CSV/SFTP, OAuth/SAML, legacy endpoints)
Confidence in debugging across multiple layers: logs, databases, networks
Clear, warm communication—comfortable presenting to technical and non-technical audiences
A mindset for automation and repeatability
Basic awareness of security/privacy best practices (FERPA/GDPR)
Company
Risely AI (YC S25)
Risely’s AI agents automate administrative and manual tasks across college campuses.
2-10 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageTotal Funding
$0.5MKey Investors
Y Combinator
2025-06-11Pre Seed· $0.5M
Recent News
2025-10-13
Company data provided by crunchbase