Forward Deployed Engineer

Company Overview:

We are building Protege to solve the biggest unmet need in AI — getting access to the right training data. The process today is time intensive, incredibly expensive, and often ends in failure. The Protege platform facilitates the secure, efficient, and privacy-centric exchange of AI training data.

Solving AI’s data problem is a generational opportunity. We’re backed by world-class investors and already powering partnerships with some of the most ambitious teams in AI. The company that succeeds will be one of the largest in AI — and in tech.

We’re a lean, fast-moving, high-trust team of builders who are obsessed with velocity and impact. Our culture is built for people who thrive on ambiguity, own outcomes, and want to shape the future of data and AI.

About the Role Protege is hiring Forward Deployed Engineers to join our healthcare team. This is a hands-on role focused on end-to-end ownership of customer engagements, from initial feasibility through delivery and post-launch support.

You'll be part of a team that works at the crossroads of customer needs, healthcare data, and our platform. You’ll partner closely with our healthcare GM, Solutions Leads, and DataLab to navigate customer requirements. Within the team, FDEs take different shapes of engagement. Some work across many healthcare deals and customers, while others are dedicated to specific strategic accounts. Every FDE is meant to build the last-mile work that makes deals successful, surface the patterns that should become product, and continue to develop the technical depth that makes us effective in healthcare.

This role is ideal for engineers who want to own customer outcomes as it sits at the center of a vertical that is growing extremely rapidly. You'll be managing customer relationships, technical delivery, and architecture decisions at the same time, across multiple deals at a time. The pace is fast, the ambiguity is real, and when deals are live, availability outside standard hours is part of the job. If this type of environment and growth excites you, there could be a strong fit. If this is not something you are actively looking for, this likely is not the correct role.

What You’ll Do

• Own healthcare customer engagements end-to-end
• Lead customer-facing technical work from initial scoping through implementation, delivery, and post-delivery support.
• Become the primary technical partner for assigned healthcare customers.
• Build trusted relationships with customer engineering and technical teams.
• Manage multiple concurrent healthcare engagements while maintaining delivery quality and customer confidence.
• Build custom solutions for complex customer needs
• Develop and deploy integrations, data transformations, and applications that solve customer-specific challenges.
• Navigate customer technical environments and adapt Protege’s platform capabilities to real-world deployment constraints.
• Translate ambiguous customer needs into clear technical plans, delivery milestones, and practical implementation paths.
• Bridge customer needs with product and platform capabilities
• Identify where customer-specific work points to repeatable product opportunities.
• Surface actionable product feedback based on implementation patterns, customer pain points, and delivery blockers.
• Partner with product and engineering to turn bespoke solutions into reusable platform capabilities where appropriate.
• Operate with strong healthcare data judgment
• Handle healthcare data environments with appropriate care, including PHI and regulatory considerations.
• Make sound technical decisions in complex, regulated settings.
• Communicate clearly with customers and internal teams about tradeoffs, risks, dependencies, and implementation choices.
• Create reusable delivery leverage
• Contribute playbooks, tooling, templates, and best practices that improve future healthcare deal execution.
• Document repeatable patterns and lessons from customer engagements.
• Help Protege move faster over time by turning one-off implementation work into reusable delivery assets.

What Success Looks Like 30 days: Support an active deal

The FDE has built context on Protege’s healthcare customer motion, platform capabilities, common implementation needs, and regulated data considerations. They are supporting an active customer engagement with guidance.

60 days: Lead a solo engagement

The FDE is independently leading a scoped customer engagement or technical workstream, building trust with customer technical teams, and delivering against customer requirements and timelines.

90 days: Own multiple concurrent engagements

The FDE is independently managing multiple healthcare customer engagements, contributing reusable playbooks or tooling, and surfacing product feedback that helps convert bespoke implementation patterns into scalable capabilities.

What You Bring

• Experience in software engineering, solution architecture, forward deployed engineering, technical implementation, or a similar customer-facing technical role.
• Ability to own customer engagements from scoping through delivery and support.
• Strong technical execution across custom solutions, integrations, data transformations, and/or applications.
• Comfort operating in healthcare data environments, including sensitivity to PHI and regulatory considerations.
• Strong customer-facing communication and ability to build trust with technical stakeholders.
• Ability to bridge customer needs with product and platform capabilities.
• High ownership, adaptability, and comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Bias toward creating reusable systems, playbooks, tooling, and best practices rather than solving the same problem repeatedly.

Protege Values Pass the Loved Ones' Test We act with integrity and do the right thing - especially when it's hard and no one is watching.

Always Find a Way We are resourceful, resilient builders who solve hard problems and push through obstacles.

Go Fast and Grow Fast Velocity matters. We move with urgency, learn quickly, and continuously improve as individuals and as a company.

Practice Kindness and Candor We communicate directly and respectfully, building trust through honest feedback and genuine care for one another.

Deliver Together We win as one team. Collaboration, accountability, and shared ownership drive our success.

Own the Outcome. Hone the Craft. We take pride in our work, sweat the details, and continuously raise the bar for excellence.