Forward Deployed Engineer

Company: XDOF
Location: San Mateo CA (in office 5 days per week)
Compensation: $230000 - $310000 competitive equity
Employment Type: Full-time
Visa Sponsorship: Confirm with recruiter

XDOF is the data engine for physical AI and embodied intelligence. It delivers high-quality teleoperation on-embodiment and egocentric training data to frontier AI labs and humanoid robotics companies paired with its own hardware ecosystem and a model fine-tuning loop.

Founded in 2023 XDOF has raised $17M and has about 20 people.

XDOF is hiring a founding Forward Deployed Engineer (5-8 years) to own end-to-end delivery for its most strategic robotics and frontier AI customers. Think Palantir-style FDE: deeply technical high agency and excellent with customers.

• Own end-to-end data delivery for strategic customers: pipeline understanding data quality scoping and QA before shipping.
• Act as first technical responder for your accounts and resolve most issues without escalation.
• Translate complex technical concepts for sophisticated robotics and AI customers.
• Turn recurring customer needs into product and pipeline improvements and reusable playbooks.
• Grow the forward-deployed motion into platform integrations and model fine-tuning and evaluation services.

• 5-8 years as a customer-facing software engineer or forward deployed engineer
• Strong Python and data pipeline experience
• Ability to work independently in ambiguity
• Excellent customer communication

• Robotics or AI/ML data experience
• Familiarity with MCAP or HDF5 data formats

Python data pipelines robotics AI/ML MCAP HDF5

REVENUE: 15.39% of first-year salary. Est. fee per hire $35K-$48K; 2 seat(s) up to $83K if all filled.

TARGET COMPANIES (suggested): Physical Intelligence Skild AI Figure Covariant Palantir Anduril Scale AI.

BEST-FIT CANDIDATE: 5-8 yrs; customer-facing SWE/FDE; Python data pipelines; independent problem solving; visa: confirm; location: San Mateo 5 days. Founding FDE; low competition engaged hiring manager.