Software Forward Deployed Engineer - Cincinnati

Description

CoLab helps mechanical engineering teams bring life-changing products to market years sooner.

The company builds AI for engineers who design cars, medical devices and jet engines.

Products this complex take months of iteration, reviews and testing before anything is built. CoLab hosts those reviews and records the reasoning behind each change, so it shows why a decision was made, not just what changed.

It helps manufacturers such as Bobcat, Triumph Motorcycles and GE Appliances make better decisions, cut rework and reach market faster.

Based in St. John's, Newfoundland, the company started in 2018 with one customer. It has raised a $72M Series C, was ranked 57th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte's Fast 500, and holds multi-year AI partnerships with companies such as Bombardier. The team has 250+ people.

The Software Forward Deployed Engineer embeds with strategic customers to scope, build and deploy complex integrations, product features and AI features that connect customer systems to CoLab. The goal is faster adoption and a better return for the customer.

You will work with customer success, product, design, engineering and leadership to remove blockers and get results.

This role carries more ambiguity, outside team dynamics and timeline pressure than a standard software job. It suits people who like working directly with customers and shipping code to solve complex problems, with high agency and autonomy.

Responsibilities

• Take strategic customer projects from technical discovery to production launch and track their success measures.
• Build and ship complex system integrations, backend services and data pipelines.
• Connect with enterprise systems such as data lakes, identity and access management, PLM and ERP platforms.
• Set up CoLab integrations and structure incoming data so features like AutoReview and Operator can use it.
• Work directly with customers to learn their needs, propose solutions and help them adopt the product.
• Create solutions for each customer's specific requirements while designing them with the wider customer base in mind.
• Pass what you learn about customer requirements back to the development team.

Requirements

• Have delivered complex technical solutions where requirements were not clearly defined at the start.
• Write clean, production-grade code in several languages. You are not tied to one.
• Adapt to unfamiliar technical and organizational environments.
• Have worked with enterprise systems such as data lakes, IdP, PLM and ERP.
• Break down ambiguity, sequence the work and adjust scope without losing momentum.
• Lead deeply technical conversations with customer engineering or IT teams with confidence.
• Focus on delivering outcomes, not just writing code.
• Work out problems on your own and stay steady when priorities shift.
• Bonus: prior work embedded in customer environments as part of enterprise SaaS deployments.
• Bonus: experience building or integrating AI-powered features.
• Bonus: familiarity with manufacturing or engineering data, processes or systems.
• Bonus: experience with API-first products or developer platforms.

Conditions

Full-time, permanent position.

On-site role based in Cincinnati, Ohio, where you are comfortable working at customer sites.

Pay is a competitive package made up of base salary and stock options.

Many people only apply when they meet 100% of the qualifications, but the company encourages you to apply even if you do not meet every one, since your potential matters most.

Benefits

• Extended health benefits.
• Unlimited vacation.
• 401k matching.