Forward Deployed Engineer

San FranciscoFull-time$75k–$125kPosted Jul 31, 2026

About Ironsite

Construction is one of the most complex and labor-intensive industries in the world. It spends roughly $7 trillion a year on labor — and loses an estimated $1.6 trillion a year to productivity gaps, largely because the tools used to manage the work haven't meaningfully changed in decades. Most project decisions are still made from clipboards, daily reports, and secondhand accounts of what happened in the field.Ironsite is closing that gap. We put wearable cameras on hard hats and vests, then combine expert human labeling with AI vision-language models to turn raw jobsite footage into a clear, quantitative picture of how work actually gets done. Our customers use that picture to reduce labor costs, improve safety outcomes, and deliver projects faster.
Where we are today:

50,000+ hours of construction footage captured across 7 states

We work with some of the largest general contractors and self-perform builders in the United States, and we're building the team to scale nationwide.

The Role

Forward Deployed Engineers are the bridge between Ironsite and the field. You'll be on jobsites, in trailers, and alongside crews — standing up deployments, earning the trust of the people wearing our hardware, and making sure the data coming back is good enough to change how a project runs.This is not a desk job, and it is not a traditional software role. It's closer to being an embedded operator: you own a deployment end to end, from the first site walk through the first weeks of capture, and you're the person the contractor calls when something needs to work. The best people in this seat come from the field. They know what a framing crew's morning actually looks like, they can read a schedule, and they can hold a conversation with a superintendent and an engineer in the same hour.You'll work in tight coordination with our Ground Truth, Hardware, Infrastructure, and Engineering teams — and what you learn on site directly shapes what we build next.

What You'll Do

Own deployments end to end

Travel to jobsites across the country to deploy, configure, and support cases of Ironsite devices
Run pre-deployment site walks: assess site conditions, safety requirements, crew size and composition, and logistics, then translate those findings into a workable deployment plan
Stand up on-site infrastructure — connectivity, charging and docking locations, device storage and security — and solve the physical problems that come with real construction sites
Lead deployment readiness reviews with internal stakeholders and drive open items to closure before Day 1

Build trust with crews and contractor leadership

Onboard craft workers to the hardware: fit devices, explain what we do and don't capture, and answer honest questions honestly
Serve as the day-to-day point of contact for superintendents, project engineers, and self-perform leads
Read the room on a jobsite. Adoption depends on the crew believing this helps them, and that's earned in person

Turn field work into product

Partner with the Ground Truth team to make sure our activity taxonomy reflects what's actually happening on site — the trades, sequences, and edge cases that generic categories miss
Map capture back to the contractor's own work breakdown structure and labor codes so findings connect to cost and schedule, not just video
Feed structured observations back to Hardware, Engineering, and AI. You'll be the reason a mount gets redesigned or a model gets retrained

Keep the fleet healthy

Manage device inventory, charging cadence, firmware, and pack-out across concurrent deployments
Diagnose and resolve hardware and connectivity issues in the field, often without a second set of hands
Document what you learn so the next deployment goes faster than the last

What We're Looking For

Required

1–5 years of construction field experience — as a foreman, superintendent, project engineer, field engineer, craft worker, or similar
Broad exposure across general trades. You can walk a site and understand what's in front of you, whether it's framing, concrete, MEP, or finishes
Wide availability to travel. This role requires frequent, sometimes short-notice travel to jobsites nationwide, including multi-day and multi-week deployments
Comfort working in active construction environments — outdoors, in varied weather, at height, and in compliance with site-specific safety requirements
Strong communication across audiences. You can brief a GC's leadership in the morning and troubleshoot with a crew at lunch
High autonomy and sound judgment. You'll frequently be the only Ironsite person on site, making calls in real time
Valid driver's license and ability to travel domestically without restriction

Strongly preferred

Bilingual (English / Spanish). A large share of the crews we work with are Spanish-speaking, and being able to onboard someone in their first language materially changes adoption

Nice to have

Bachelor's degree in Construction Management, Civil Engineering, or a related field
Familiarity with scheduling, WBS/cost-code structures, or labor productivity analysis
OSHA 10 / OSHA 30, or willingness to obtain
Experience with hardware deployment, field IT, or networking (Starlink, cellular, mesh)
Comfort with data tools — spreadsheets, SQL, or light scripting — to make sense of your own deployments

What Success Looks Like

First 30 days: You've shadowed deployments, know the hardware cold, and can run a site walk on your own
First 90 days: You've independently owned a deployment from site walk through steady-state capture, with a contractor who wants you back
First 6 months: You're the internal authority on a set of accounts, and your field observations have visibly changed the product

Locations

We're hiring Forward Deployed Engineers based in or near:

San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Texas (Austin / Dallas–Fort Worth)
Washington, DC / Northern Virginia

You'll be anchored in one of these markets and travel to active projects nationwide.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $75,000 – $125,000 per year, commensurate with experience
Meaningful early-stage equity — we want the people closest to the customer to own a real piece of the outcome
Travel fully covered, with per diem
Health, dental, and vision coverage
Company hardware and field gear

Final compensation is determined by experience, location, and level.

Why This Role

Most software companies serving construction have never had someone on a jobsite at 6am. We have, constantly — and it's the reason our product works. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you sit at the exact point where an industry that runs on experience meets technology that's finally good enough to help. You'll have unusual influence over what we build, direct relationships with the largest builders in the country, and a front-row seat as this category gets defined.If you've spent time in the field and have wondered why the tools are so far behind the work — this is the job.Ironsite is an equal opportunity employer. We're committed to building a team that reflects the industry we serve, and we welcome applicants of every background, identity, and experience.