The Role
As our first Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be the technical point of contact for customers in the field – owning integrations, onsite deployment work, and the translation of real-world operational needs into robust, scalable technical solutions. You’ll work hands-on with customer systems, troubleshoot complex environments, and rapidly prototype tools and integrations needed to make Realm successful in mission-critical settings.
This role is deeply technical and field-oriented – focused on making the product work seamlessly in demanding industrial and government environments. You’ll embed with users, uncover operational realities, validate technical assumptions, and ensure our technology performs reliably under real-world constraints. This is an ideal role for someone who enjoys building in messy environments, thrives on customer interaction, and takes pride in shipping solutions that matter.
What You’ll Do
Spend ~50% of your time onsite with customers across the US
Build a ground-truth understanding of customer operations – shadowing operators, analysts, and frontline teams to understand workflows, constraints, and integration requirements
Rapidly prototype tools and integrations in the field (“vibe-coding”) to validate ideas, solve urgent problems, and prove feasibility before handing off to engineering
Troubleshoot and diagnose complex operational or systems issues across varied and sometimes degraded environments
Translate field insights into clear technical requirements and integration specs for the engineering team
Lead all technical integration work, including APIs, data pipelines, hardware/software interfaces, and security/compliance-sensitive deployment setups
Work closely with engineering to ensure features, interfaces, and infrastructure align with real-world operational needs
Represent customer technical realities internally – ensuring feasibility, reliability, and operational constraints are deeply understood
Decompose ambiguous, real-world problems into well-scoped technical workstreams
Ensure customers succeed in mission-critical contexts by enabling smooth deployment, data flow, connectivity, and operational reliability
Inform the product and engineering teams with data, field observations, and frontline feedback – advocating for changes that reflect true customer needs
Contribute to the foundation, process, and culture that will scale Realm’s forward deployed engineering function
Realm is an AI-driven platform that delivers significant cost savings for industrial operations. By preventing 80% of failures before they happen, Realm maximizes uptime, saving millions in lost revenue.Built on the latest advances in AI, Realm integrates with your existing cameras, sensors, and control systems to automatically detect and predict equipment failures, flag unsafe and suspicious behavior, automate response actions like shut-offs, and immediately notify and dispatch key personnel.Realm also augments your existing monitoring infrastructure with edge AI devices and drones for comprehensive, customizable event detection in low-connectivity and unmonitored areas (large-scale infrastructure, vehicles, etc.).Realm has a proven track record with clients in coal, gemstones, and oil & gas.