Forward Deployed Engineer

About Origin by Prelude

Origin is building the next generation of endpoint security for the Semantic Era. As AI agents and LLMs fundamentally change how humans interface with computers, legacy signature-based defenses are failing. We are pioneering a new approach - moving from "known bad" detection to "contextual intent" understanding - to ensure enterprises can safely adopt the productivity of AI without the risk. Our platform monitors and protects some of the most important organizations in the world. We are backed by Sequoia Capital, Brightmind Ventures, IA Ventures and other top firms.

Role

Origin is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to be the bridge between our technology and the customers we protect. This is a customer-facing engineering role where you'll embed directly with customers to build bespoke solutions using Origin's endpoint observability platform. You'll spend 70% of your time building - integrating new telemetry sources, adding custom AI agent observability, extending the agent for unique environments, and developing capabilities tailored to customer needs.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll work at the intersection of full-stack engineering and customer success. You'll be the technical expert who understands both our platform's capabilities and the customer's operational reality. This role requires someone who genuinely enjoys solving hard problems alongside customers. You'll collaborate with our research and development teams to translate field insights into product features, but your primary focus is hands-on engineering: building the custom integrations, workflows, and extensions that make Origin work perfectly in each customer environment.

Travel may be required for this role, up to approximately 20%.

Responsibilities

• Partner directly with customers to understand their unique environments, operational constraints, and capability gaps

• Design and implement custom telemetry integrations: extend Origin's platform to ingest customer-specific data sources, proprietary log formats, and external threat intelligence

• Build bespoke detection and analytics capabilities: develop custom correlation logic, confidence scoring models, and automation workflows tailored to customer needs

• Extend the agent for unique environments: ensure Origin works flawlessly in specialized infrastructure, performance-constrained systems, and customer-specific deployment scenarios

• Develop full-stack solutions: build custom dashboards, API integrations, data pipelines, and frontend experiences that solve specific customer problems

• Gather customer feedback and field insights: translate real-world challenges into product requirements and engineering priorities

• Collaborate with research and development teams: share field learnings that drive platform innovation and new capabilities

• Support customers through deployment, troubleshooting, and optimization: ensure successful adoption and long-term value realization

Skills & Experience

• Strong full-stack engineering capability: comfortable building across frontend (React, TypeScript), backend (Rust, Python), and endpoint agent systems

• Proven problem-solving ability: creative approaches to novel technical challenges, especially in customer environments with unique constraints

• Experience integrating external systems: building data adapters, API integrations, custom telemetry collection, or extending existing platforms

• Operating system fundamentals: understanding of Windows and/or macOS internals, process management, memory architecture, and system security mechanisms

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills: ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders with clarity and patience

• Customer empathy and business acumen: genuine interest in understanding customer operational challenges and translating them into technical solutions

• Innate aptitude for customer-facing work: you're cool, confident, capable, and genuinely likable - customers should love working with you

• Comfortable in fast-paced startup environments with evolving priorities and hands-on execution

Nice to Haves

• Prior experience in customer-facing engineering roles: professional services, solutions engineering, or forward deployed engineering

• Early-stage startup experience: comfort with rapid iteration, ambiguity, creative problem-solving, and wearing multiple hats

• Background in security operations, incident response, or red teaming: practical understanding of how security tools are used in real operational environments

• Deep knowledge of endpoint security products (EDR/XDR platforms): understanding of how they work internally and how customers use them

• Cross-platform systems expertise: experience developing for both Windows and macOS at the OS internals level

• Experience with cloud infrastructure and modern DevOps: AWS/GCP/Azure, Docker/Kubernetes, Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform)

• Agent or systems-level development experience: building high-performance native software with resource constraints

• Domain expertise in customer industries: supply chain, finance, technology, manufacturing, or other sectors with complex security requirements

Working at Origin

Origin is a fully remote team across the US & Canada, built on trust, autonomy, and excellence. We empower our team to take ownership, move with purpose, and continuously improve. Our culture values top performers who align with our mission and embrace high standards. We offer generous healthcare, flexible PTO, and home-office support, ensuring our team has the freedom and resources to thrive. While we move fast, we prioritize quality, collaboration, and remain committed to building impactful security solutions with precision.