Forward Deployed Engineer

About Exa

We raised a $250M Series C to build the search engine for AIs. Led by a16z, with existing investors Benchmark, Lightspeed, and YC doubling down, the round brings Exa's valuation to $2.2 billion.

Exa is building a search engine for the AI era. Our Search API currently powers Agents, Fortune 500s, and AI labs as we transform an industry that hasn't been disrupted since the 90s. We're a team of ~100 from Harvard, MIT, Meta, Google Research, ex-founders, and dropouts alike. We are rapidly building the most intelligent search engine in history. We're high agency, low-ego, and united by the feeling that this is one of the last problems worth getting right.

About the role

Forward Deployed Engineers are the technical tip of the spear at Exa. Partnered with an Account Executive, you own the technical win: you run discovery with customer engineering teams, design solutions on Exa's API, build and deliver demos and POCs that prove value, and turn technical evaluations into closed deals. You'll be one of the first GTM engineers in your region — you'll help define how Exa sells there, not just execute a playbook.

In this role, you will:

• Own the technical side of the sales cycle: discovery, solution design, demos, POCs/POVs, and technical objection handling, in partnership with your AE

• Run the technical side of expansion: spot new use cases in existing accounts and turn them into evaluations, with your AE

• Build working demos and prototypes on Exa's API tailored to each customer's use case — agents, research, search, enrichment

• Tell the story: translate Exa's capabilities into use-case narratives that land with CTOs, engineers, and PMs alike

• Be the trusted technical advisor: know Exa inside out — the product, the API, the problems it solves — answer hard questions honestly, run evaluations rigorously, and know when to pull in engineering

• Feed the field back into product: identify patterns across customer evaluations and channel them to product and engineering

• Scale yourself and the region: build reusable demos, integration patterns, and playbooks, and represent Exa at technical workshops, meetups, and conferences

• As a founding regional hire, support early customers through onboarding and initial implementation while we build out dedicated post-sales

Requirements

• 5+ years in a customer-facing technical role (flexible for exceptional candidates) — solutions/sales engineering, solutions architecture, or an engineering role with heavy customer exposure (e.g., engineering lead, developer relations, technical consulting)

• Technical depth with APIs and modern development (e.g. Python or TypeScript): you can design an integration, build a working demo, and debug it live — using AI-assisted tooling is expected, hand-crafted code is not the bar

• Strong communication and presentation skills: you can command a room, adapt to your audience, and say "I don't know — I'll find out" when you don't

• Comfort with ambiguity and early-stage intensity: you can run several evaluations in parallel, prioritize what moves deals, and your job description will change as the region grows

• Familiarity with the modern AI stack — LLMs, RAG, agents — and how customers evaluate it; you can scope a POC with clear success criteria

• Based in region with willingness to travel for customer engagements

You might excel if you…

• Have owned technical evaluations at a developer-platform / API-first company — POCs/POVs you scoped and ran that ended in a customer going live

• Have led engineers and want to move toward the customer, or are an SE who wants to be more hands-on than your last role allowed

• Are genuinely curious about AI and have built things with LLMs — side projects count

• Are energized by being the first: first hire, first deal, first playbook in a region

• Have run enterprise evaluations end-to-end — POC success criteria, security questionnaires, RFP responses

• Speak additional regional languages (a plus across APJ markets)

This is an in-person opportunity in London. In addition to premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), we also offer fertility benefits and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees.

Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.