Forward Deployed Engineer

Location: San Francisco
Reports To: Head of Forward Deployed Engineering

OTE: $185,000 - $235,000

About Us

Rime builds voice AI for enterprises running customer experiences at scale. Our text-to-speech models are purpose-built for high-volume conversational deployments, engineered for the pronunciation accuracy, latency, and deployment flexibility that production environments actually demand.

We started from a different premise than the rest of the field: voice AI isn't bottlenecked by model architecture. It's bottlenecked by data. So before we trained a single model, we built our own corpus: full-duplex, studio-quality conversational speech, recorded and annotated by PhD linguists. That's our moat. It's also why enterprises pick Rime when pilots need to convert into production.

We're backed by top-tier investors including Unusual Ventures, and we've built a team at the intersection of product, research, and craft. Building voice models is an art. We intend to master it.

The Role

We’re looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer to operate at the intersection of sales, product, and engineering - helping enterprise customers bring frontier voice AI into production.

This is not a traditional solutions engineer role. You’ll work directly with customers and internal teams to design prototypes, build integrations, solve technical blockers, and deploy production-ready systems in live environments.

You’ll own technical execution across the customer lifecycle: from early technical discovery and POCs to implementation and expansion. The work is highly hands-on and fast-moving. The best candidates are strong builders who enjoy working directly with customers and thrive in ambiguous environments.

What You’ll Do

Be a technical closer. You're in the room for every strategic deal - not to present slides, but to build what it takes to win.
Deploy frontier models into production. Get your hands dirty with real integrations, real infrastructure, and real customer environments at some of the largest companies in the world.
Own the POC end-to-end. Design, build, and ship production-quality proof-of-concepts - frontend, backend, integrations - fast.
Own the customer relationship technically. Manage technical stakeholders from first demo through go-live and expansion. Pre-sales and post-sales are yours.
Turn what you build into product. Patterns you identify across deals go upstream - you're a direct input to the roadmap.

Who You Are

A builder who wants to be customer-facing. You're most comfortable when you're writing code and in the room with the customer - not choosing between the two.
Full-stack capable. You can ship clean, production-quality systems quickly and aren't precious about the stack.
Deeply comfortable with APIs, SDKs, and cloud infrastructure in live customer environments.
Energized by ambiguity. You thrive when requirements are half-formed, the timeline is short, and the stakes are high.
A sharp communicator who goes deep with engineers and clearly frames business value for executives.
Done waiting on the sidelines. You want ownership, impact, and a seat at the table.

Nice to Have

Experience with voice AI, TTS, speech, or real-time systems
Background working with ISVs, platforms, or developer ecosystems
Familiarity with WebRTC, streaming, or low-latency systems

Why Join Rime

Rime is an AI lab - you're working alongside the researchers and engineers building frontier voice ai models.
Direct exposure to how frontier AI gets built and deployed at scale, across some of the most demanding industries in the world.
Competitive compensation with meaningful equity and real performance upside — we want to build a small, high-performing team that has real ownership.

At Rime, we...

Are outliers
Cut through the hype to focus on the craft
Move fast with agency and freedom
Maintain a growth mindset, finding joy in the struggle
Do the right things, knowing that it'll lead to making money
If that sounds like you too, you'll be a great fit for Rime!

Forward Deployed Engineer