Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

The posting, as Clutch wrote it

About the Role

Clutch builds AI agents that work on behalf of credit unions. Emma, our collections agent, is live at five credit unions and handled 60,000+ member conversations in her first twelve weeks at one of them. Behind her is a growing portfolio: origination, fraud step-up, member (re)engagement and activation agents, all built on the same Agents Platform (TypeScript, NestJS, our own agent SDK, MCP, Temporal, promptfoo).

As a FDE you are one of the two engineers on an agent. You take it from "sold" to "live and performing" at a specific credit union: you sit in the discovery sessions, you build the integrations to their core banking and loan systems, you author and tune the agent's behavior, you run the live tests with their staff, and you stay with it through go-live and the first weeks of production. When something needs a person in the room, you are the one who flies.

This is a senior engineering role, not a solutions or support role. You write production code in our monorepo every week: integrations, modules, and the agents themselves (prompts, tools, evals), together with the other engineers on the pod. The difference from a traditional engineer is that you are on site more often, you make judgment calls in front of the customer, and you own the outcome. What you learn in the field flows straight back into the product: defaults, playbooks, and the platform capabilities the next agent will need.

You build; our AI Operations Managers deliver. The pod (pod lead plus engineers) designs and builds each agent in a high-touch way with the first customers. Once the agent is defined and live, AI Ops coordinates the implementations, configuration and ongoing success at the next credit unions. You hand them something that works and a playbook to run it.

• This role requires roughly 20% of travel on average, with one- to two-week stretches around kickoffs and go-lives. Based in the US, able to travel on short notice

About the Team

You'll join the Agents team, a small, senior group operating as a startup inside Clutch: seven engineers, a dedicated AI product group, and AI sales specialists, working directly with some of the largest credit unions in the country. Every agent is staffed by a pair of engineers, one leaning toward the conversation and LLM side, one toward software and integrations, with a pod lead who owns the product day to day. There is no layer between you and the customer, and no layer between you and the platform team.

The operating style is direct, written, and evidence-driven: BLUF updates, evals over opinions, business outcomes over ticket counts. The team is spread across Brazil, Argentina and the US and works async by default. Being on site is a tool we use at specific moments (kickoff, live testing, go-live), not a permanent posting.

What You’ll Do

Within 1 months, you will

• Ship your first production change to a live agent through the team's review process, and be able to explain how a member's ca

[…]
ed for affordable lending solutions in an era where the average American grapples with over $155,000 in household debt. Unlike traditional financial institutions, Clutch develops software to turn Credit Unions into FinTech lenders and leverage their balance sheets to responsibly lend to over 130M Americans. Our mission extends beyond mere financial transactions; we strive to fundamentally enhance the way credit unions interact with their members. By integrating cutting-edge technologies and user-centric designs, we help credit unions provide seamless digital experiences that are on par with leading tech companies. This approach not only preserves but revitalizes the longstanding tradition of community and member-focused service inherent to credit unions.

Clutch is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

Salary Transparency
US Tier I (SF, NYC, LA, Seattle): $176,000 - $210,000
US Tier II (All Other): $158,000 - $188,000
Actual pay may vary based on qualifications, skills, experience, and location. Base salary does not include bonus, equity, or benefits, which are offered in addition as applicable.
Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis.

Our organization participates in E-Verify. Click here https://www.e-verify.gov/about-e-verify/what-is-e-verify to learn about E-Verify.

A Note About AI at Clutch
We love AI. We use it often and encourage our team to creatively and effectively leverage AI tools in their work. If you join Clutch, we hope you'll bring the same enthusiasm for exploring how AI can amplify impact, productivity, and innovation.

That said, during the interview process, we want to hear your thoughts. Please approach interviews without the use of AI tools—our goal is to get to know how you think, solve problems, and communicate. Once you're in the seat, bring on the prompts!