Forward Deployed Engineer

Paperbase is the privacy-forward memory layer for your organization. It connects to the tools your team already uses and turns scattered work into one shared record: what your company knows, what is still true, and the reasoning behind every decision. Your people and your AI agents work from the same memory, so nothing starts from zero.

It runs on infrastructure you choose, and we never see or train on your data.

If you're ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.

We hire successful builders with founder-level energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring sharp role expertise and you are motivated by the mission. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

You are direct. No validation culture, no reassurance. We stress-test everything, including our own ideas. You are humble and collaborative, take zero-to-one ideas into real products, and get stuff done end to end. You use AI as a force multiplier - our CTO runs parallel AI coding agents, and everyone here is expected to work faster than the market standard. If that sounds like you, let's build what's next.

The engineering team is the product. We are a small, senior team where the CTO ships code daily and runs parallel AI coding agents. The FDE is the first seat of its kind at Paperbase - the role that turns a signed deal into a live deployment. You will work directly with the CTO and CEO.

As Founding Forward-Deployed Engineer, you own the deployment of Paperbase into customer environments. You sit across the full stack - infrastructure, integration, configuration, training - and you are the product's front line, feeding what you learn back into engineering.

• Own the deployment playbook for Paperbase across managed VPC, self-managed VPC, and air-gapped on-prem environments
• Install, integrate, and configure Paperbase in customer environments: connectors (email, Slack, docs, meetings, databases), knowledge mapping, and memory-layer setup
• Run the first month with each customer: stress-test the real workflows, train internal champions, then retire from the account
• Translate between infrastructure and outcome in front of CIOs, managing partners, and security teams
• Feed deployment learnings back into engineering and product
• Architect for coherence, not just velocity

• Full-stack engineering experience (backend and frontend)
• Strong infrastructure fundamentals: Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Experience with on-prem or self-hosted deployments
• Product judgment - you can look at a workflow and say whether it will feel broken
• Comfort operating in customer-facing environments with senior stakeholders
• Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science or a related field

• Experience as a Forward-Deployed Engineer or in customer-facing engineering (implementation, solutions, or professional services at an infrastructure company)
• Experience with air-gapped or sovereign environments
• Experience with databases and data integration (ETL, connectors, APIs)
• Startup or high-growth environment experience
• Security and compliance awareness (SOC 2, ISO 27001)

To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Paperbase will never ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @paperbase.com email address. Please apply only through the official channels listed in this posting or our official LinkedIn page.

Paperbase does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms or recruiters. Paperbase will not pay fees to search firms or recruiters if a candidate is submitted without an agreement in place for the specific open position. Search firms and recruiters submitting resumes on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition.

Paperbase is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity, and anyone seeking employment at Paperbase is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence, and talent. We do not regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.