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Remote role · software

Software Engineer, Forward Deployed (Mid - Senior Level)

Zip

SalaryUSD 150,000–250,000 / year
Before you apply

Role details

The practical picture
Base compensation

USD 150,000–250,000 / year

Employment
Full-time

Work & location

Remote scope
San Francisco

Inside the role

Qualifications
3+ years software engineering experience Python React/TypeScript Production systems Customer-facing communication Product sense
Role signal brief

The role, at a glance

Extracted from the source posting · 95% confidence

The Forward Deployed Software Engineer at Zip works on the highest-impact product work, shipping production code and partnering directly with critical enterprise customers to close high-stakes deals. The candidate owns the engineering for major implementations, building enterprise-grade features like APIs and notifications on a rapid, customer-driven timeline. The role bridges engineering and customer-facing requirements to shape the company's long-term platform roadmap.

Remote scope
San Francisco
Compensation
USD 150,000–250,000 / year

What you need

  • 3+ years software engineering experience
  • Python
  • React/TypeScript
  • Production systems
  • Customer-facing communication
  • Product sense

What you will own

  • Lead engineering on critical customer projects, owning scope, sequencing, and delivery
  • Ship high-impact features to advance strategic deals and renewals
  • Partner with product teams to decide feature priorities and handle pushbacks
  • Communicate directly with enterprise customers to diagnose issues and translate requirements
  • Shape the long-term platform roadmap based on patterns observed in customer implementations
Core skills
PythonReact/TypeScriptProduction systemsForward-deployed engineeringProduct senseCustomer communication
Internal freshness window ends Oct 22, 2026
View source evidence
  • salary “The base salary range for this role is $150,000 - $250,000.”
  • location “Job location: San Francisco”
  • remote_scope “Job location: San Francisco”
  • must_have “3+ years of experience in software engineering or similar field.”
  • must_have “Python on the backend and React/TypeScript on the frontend at Zip.”
  • must_have “Customer empathy and crisp communication.”
pythonreact/typescriptproduction systemsforward-deployed engineering
Role brief
About Zip

Zip is the AI platform for enterprise procurement — built for humans and agents working together. By orchestrating procurement across teams, tools, and suppliers with the help of AI agents, companies can secure the resources they need to innovate faster than ever before.

The world’s most influential enterprises trust Zip, including T-Mobile, OpenAI, AMD, Mars, Dollar Tree, and more. Together they’ve saved over $8 billion and processed over $500 billion in spend. Zip’s team includes product leaders from Apple, Airbnb, and Meta, as well as former procurement leaders from United Health, Sanofi, MGM Resorts, Discover, and NASA.

Backed by Adams Street, Alkeon, BOND, CRV, DST, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator, Zip has raised $371 million, most recently at a $2.2 billion valuation and has been recognized by Forbes Fintech 50, Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, Inc. Best in Business, and LinkedIn Top Startups.

Your role

You'll join Zip's Forward Deployed Software Engineering team as a software engineer on some of the highest-impact product work at the company. You'll write and ship production code, partner directly with our most critical customers, and own the engineering on the deals that matter most to Zip.

The team operates close to the customer, moves with urgency, and builds the features that determine whether the biggest deals close on time, whether our most demanding customers stay on the leading edge of the product, and what enterprise-grade looks like in our platform.

If you've done Forward Deployed work elsewhere, this is a place to keep doing it - on real product, at scale, for some of the most recognizable companies in the world.

You will

  • Lead the engineering on critical customer projects. You'll own scope, sequencing, and delivery against the timelines that high-stakes deals demand, embedded in the implementation cadence alongside our Field PM and Solutions Consultants.

  • Ship high-impact features that move the most important strategic deals and renewals forward. The work this team takes on is what makes the platform enterprise-grade - net-new product capabilities, framework gaps (APIs, exports, notifications, etc), and targeted enhancements that ship in days or weeks.

  • Bring strong product sense to every decision. Partner with core product teams to decide what to build, what to push back on, and what to redirect. Strong opinions are welcome; strong opinions grounded in what you heard on a customer call are gold.

  • Shape Zip's long-term platform and roadmap. Features you ship land at our most critical customers first and compound into the platform, and the patterns you see first become next year's product investments.

  • Communicate directly with customers. You'll be on calls with procurement, finance, and IT teams, diagnose problems live against real deadlines, and translate trade-offs in language that lands with both engineers and executives.

Your qualifications

  • 3+ years of experience in software engineering or similar field.

  • Strong software engineering skills. You've shipped non-trivial production systems and you can read and write code across the stack: Python on the backend and React/TypeScript on the frontend at Zip.

  • Product instincts and judgment. You're the engineer on your current team who pushes back on poorly scoped requirements, who notices when a feature is solving the wrong problem, and who's willing to say so.

  • Customer empathy and crisp communication. You can sit in a room with a Director of Procurement at a $50B company, hear what they're actually worried about, and translate it into a tech spec, and vice versa. If you've never done this before but the idea sounds energizing, that counts.

  • Speed and urgency with a high quality bar. You can move on a customer-driven timeline and still write code that holds up in production.

  • High ownership. You diagnose, build, and ship with minimal supervision. You're the kind of engineer who follows a problem upstream until it's actually fixed.

Nice to haves

  • Prior experience as a product engineer or full-stack engineer on a team that owned features end-to-end, shipped frequently, and worked closely with users or customers.

  • Prior founder or early-employee experience. Many of the best FDEs are people who want to start a company someday and are using this role to build empathy for what enterprises actually buy and why.

  • Experience with procurement, finance, ERP, or AP automation systems.

The base salary range for this role is $150,000 - $250,000. The salary for this position is determined based on a variety of job-related factors that may include location, relevant experience, education, or particular skills and expertise.

Perks & Benefits

At Zip, we’re committed to providing our employees with everything they need to do their best work.

  • 📈 Start-up equity

  • 🦷 100% health, vision & dental coverage options

  • 🍽️ Catered breakfast, lunch, & dinner

  • 🌴 Flexible PTO

  • 🏋️‍♀️ ClassPass membership

  • 🚍 Monthly commuter benefit

  • 🚠 Team building events & happy hours

  • 💻 Home office stipend

  • 🛜 Phone/internet reimbursement

  • 🍼 Paid parental leave

  • 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Fertility stipend

  • 💸 401k plan

  • 🤖 Unlimited AI token usage

 

We're looking to hire Zipsters and that means hiring people who take ownership, communicate openly, have an underdog mindset, and are excited to increase the pace of innovation for every business in the world. We encourage all candidates to apply even if your experience doesn't exactly match up to our job description. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workspace where everyone (regardless of age, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and more) feels like they belong. We look forward to hearing from you!