Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Forward Deployed Engineering is a distinct role in SaaS because it sits at the boundary between a core platform and the messy reality of customer environments. In a security SaaS context, that boundary is especially consequential, where integrations, telemetry, and deployment constraints often determine whether a product becomes operationally trusted. This listing signals a product-led company that still values hands-on field building as a path to maturing the platform.
For a long-term SaaS career, the role offers repeated exposure to the work that turns a generalized product into an adoptable system. Building custom integrations, extending agents, and shaping workflows based on real deployments develops strong instincts around implementation tradeoffs, packaging, and feedback loops between customers and engineering. That experience transfers well across SaaS teams that operate close to production usage, including platform engineering, solutions architecture, and technical product roles.
This position suits engineers who prefer tangible outcomes over abstract roadmaps and who enjoy collaborating directly with external stakeholders. It is a good match for someone comfortable moving across frontend, backend, and systems surfaces, and for those who want their technical decisions informed by customer constraints. Travel is mentioned, indicating fit for candidates who can balance remote execution with periodic on-site problem solving.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
Location
United States, Canada
Employment Type
Full time
Compensation
- IC 6$200K – $250K • Offers Equity
- IC 7$230K – $285K • Offers Equity
- IC 8$270K – $320K • Offers Equity
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
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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
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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
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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.
Compensation Range: $200K - $320K
