About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
We are hiring Software Engineers to join our team. This is an opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a large impact at a high growth start-up. You will tackle challenging engineering problems with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.
We are looking for a software engineer with a strong background in systems engineering. At Chalk we are solving problems drawn from the fields of DBMS query planning & optimization, compilers, and distributed analytical data processing systems.
Chalk uses dynamic and static analysis of Python programs in order to optimize arbitrary user Python code, infers and orchestrates infrastructure implied by the structure of that code, and tracks metadata about flow of data through these systems.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role.
What you will do
Work directly with Chalk’s co-founders
Write C++, Python and Rust
Design, implement, ship, and maintain significant components of our query planning and execution engine
Iterate rapidly to improve Chalk’s platform in response to customer needs
What we’re looking for
4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Strong working knowledge of computer science fundamentals. We’re not looking for experience from drilling leet code – we need folks who are comfortable building and maintaining real systems
Comfort with leading development of new components of existing systems, and with taking ownership of existing software
Track record of learning new concepts quickly
Ability to work autonomously & to make pragmatic tradeoffs with an eye towards business outcomes
Strong communication skills
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Experience implementing data infrastructure
Experience with distributed systems/compilers/query planners
Experience with Rust
Experience with developing PaaS-like software
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About Chalk
Chalk is building the data platform that powers the future of machine learning applications. We tear down complexity, latency, and scale barriers that have traditionally constrained ML capabilities. Our platform combines Rust-speed performance with elegant tools that developers love to use. Leading companies depend on Chalk for everything from stopping fraudulent credit card swipes, verifying identities, and maximizing clean energy capture. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis.
About the role
We are hiring Software Engineers to join our team. This is an opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a large impact at a high growth start-up. You will tackle challenging engineering problems with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.
We are looking for software engineers who are comfortable solving business problems across all layers of the software stack. At Chalk, we build reliable data processing systems that can operate performantly at scale with a laser-focus on developer experience.
We need engineers who can build world-class user experiences across CLI and web surfaces, while also understanding and contributing to a codebase that contains ideas from compilers, query planners, and distributed systems.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role.
What you will do
Work directly with Chalk’s co-founders to productionize our first iteration
Write TypeScript, Python, Go, and React
Expose the functionality of our core platform to data scientist and machine learning end-users in their home environments
Iterate rapidly to improve Chalk’s platform in response to customer needs
What we’re looking for
4+ years experience of professional software engineering experience
Working knowledge of computer science fundamentals. We’re not looking for experience from drilling leet code – we need folks who are comfortable building and maintaining real systems
A record of developing sophisticated user-facing applications that are pleasant to use
An eye for high-quality UX
Track record of learning new concepts quickly
Ability to work autonomously & to make pragmatic tradeoffs with an eye towards business outcomes
Strong communication skills
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Experience implementing data infrastructure
Experience working with developer tools
Experience with applied machine learning or data analytics
Experience with Go
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role. Traveling to customer sites is rare since you support teams from multiple customers while working in our office.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
2+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning
Compensation
Chalk offers early team members a generous salary + equity package based on experience and competitive benefits.
Actual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including but not limited to: market, location, scope of the position and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.
Our comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.
","descriptionPlain":"About Chalk\n\nChalk (chalk.ai http://chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai http://chalk.ai.\n\nAbout the role\n\nYou are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.\n\nYour work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.\n\nWe're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role. Traveling to customer sites is rare since you support teams from multiple customers while working in our office.\n\nWhat you will do\n\n - Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments\n\n - Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers\n\n - Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams\n\n - Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)\n\n - Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves\n\n - Help interview and grow the Engineering team\n \n\nWhat we’re looking for\n\n - Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models\n\n - 2+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience\n\n - Proficient in Python, SQL\n\n - Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals\n\n - Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills\n\n - Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.\n\n - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent\n \n\nBonus points\n\n - Previous experience working with ML/data products or services\n\n - Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure\n\n - Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning \n \n\nCompensation\nChalk offers early team members a generous salary + equity package based on experience and competitive benefits.\n\nActual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including but not limited to: market, location, scope of the position and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.\n\nOur comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.\n\n","compensation":{"compensationTierSummary":"$170K – $280K • Offers Equity","scrapeableCompensationSalarySummary":"$170K - $280K","compensationTiers":[{"id":"8c19d102-2014-449b-8aeb-5e4cc0ce234e","tierSummary":"$170K – $280K • Offers Equity","title":null,"additionalInformation":null,"components":[{"id":"17bf58da-d933-4d9f-b27c-49c47652b45a","summary":"$170K – $280K","compensationType":"Salary","interval":"1 YEAR","currencyCode":"USD","minValue":170000,"maxValue":280000},{"id":"c67d9ea8-6e1e-4e62-980e-54d3554301e4","summary":"Offers Equity","compensationType":"EquityPercentage","interval":"NONE","currencyCode":null,"minValue":null,"maxValue":null}]}],"summaryComponents":[{"compensationType":"Salary","interval":"1 YEAR","currencyCode":"USD","minValue":170000,"maxValue":280000},{"compensationType":"EquityPercentage","interval":"NONE","currencyCode":null,"minValue":null,"maxValue":null}]}},{"id":"286ebb56-7a3d-4823-953d-6afd3b21aef1","title":"Senior/Lead Developer Relations ","department":"Marketing","team":"Marketing","employmentType":"FullTime","location":"SF","shouldDisplayCompensationOnJobPostings":true,"secondaryLocations":[],"publishedAt":"2026-10-14T20:44:59.930+00:00","isListed":true,"isRemote":true,"workplaceType":"Remote","address":{"postalAddress":{"postalCode":"94108","addressRegion":"California","streetAddress":"55 Stockton St, Floor 4","addressCountry":"United States","addressLocality":"San Francisco"}},"jobUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/286ebb56-7a3d-4823-953d-6afd3b21aef1","applyUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/286ebb56-7a3d-4823-953d-6afd3b21aef1/application","descriptionHtml":"About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
Chalk is the platform for production AI. Teams use it for the context their models and agents need (Database Engine, Feature Store, 5ms Serving), the runtime to serve and run them (Model Serving, GPUs, Sandboxes, Model Gateway), and the loop that makes them better (Evals, Traces, Notebooks, Fine-Tuning). Customers can run it inside their own cloud.
Developer Relations is how AI engineers, ML engineers, and developers find out what that looks like in practice. This is a senior, hands-on role. You'll do the work yourself: build with every product, ship the demos, make the videos, and show up where developers are.
This role owns how developers find Chalk and start building on it, from the first engineer who hears about us to the team that brings Chalk into their company. The bar for this role is technical credibility with an audience that already listens to you.
Use every product we ship and build with it
Turn what you build into demos, sample apps, starter repos, and walkthroughs an engineer can clone and run in an afternoon
Own the developer funnel from first click to first deploy. Build the starter projects and signup incentives that get engineers in, and track who sticks
Make technical videos that engineers save and share: demos, build-alongs, launch videos, short clips. Own it from script to edit
Build Chalk's developer community, from the hackathons we host in our own offices to the conferences and channels where engineers come to ask us questions
Go to the meetups where developers are building, and bring back to the team what they're building and why
Set the content and community roadmap for developer relations, and define what success looks like at Chalk
Teach. Run workshops and write the deep technical explainers on inference, GPUs, and agents that engineers bookmark and come back to
Work with product, engineering, and our docs team so every launch ships with examples that run on day one. Find the rough edges in signup and first run before developers do, and argue for fixing them
Work closely with product marketing, marketing, sales, and our forward deployed teams. Shape how each launch lands with developers, and help the engineers who start on Chalk bring it into their companies
Work with marketing and account management to learn what's landing in the market, and use it to steer the DevRel content strategy
Grow an audience on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub, Reddit, and Discord, and use it to amplify our founders and engineers alongside your own voice
Be a strong voice for the customer inside Chalk. Share what you’ve learned from customers and the community to help improve our products and roadmap
7+ years as an AI engineer, ML engineer, or developer, with real time in developer relations or technical education
You built a following yourself. Engineers read your posts and watch your videos because you have been useful to them
A body of technical content you can point to, especially video and live demos. Send the links
You build the way your audience builds: Git-driven CI/CD, CLIs, notebook to production, coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor in your daily loop
You write strong Python and you're at home in ML or agent infrastructure
You have grown a self-serve developer product and can point to the signup and activation numbers you moved
Technical taste. You have opinions about what good developer content looks like and you can defend them
You’ve meaningfully influenced your company’s product and roadmap with what you’ve learned in the field
You'd rather do the work than manage it. You still write the code, record the video, and run the demo yourself
All optional. None of these are required.
DevRel at a developer infrastructure company from early stage through scale
Rust or C++
You've served models on GPUs or run agents in sandboxes
You've run a credits or incentive program that brought in developers who stayed
You've seen bottom-up adoption turn into enterprise deals
A YouTube channel or newsletter of your own
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
We are hiring exceptional engineers to join the Infrastructure team. This is an opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a large impact at a high growth start-up. You will tackle challenging engineering problems with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.
We are looking for a platform engineer with a strong background in infrastructure engineering. At Chalk we are solving problems drawn from the fields of DBMS query planning & optimization, compilers, and distributed analytical data processing systems.
Chalk uses dynamic and static analysis of Python programs in order to optimize arbitrary user Python code, infers and orchestrates infrastructure implied by the structure of that code, and tracks metadata about flow of data through these systems.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role.
What you will do
Write code to automate orchestration and provisioning of infrastructure to execute Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects.
Build a platform for managing our hosted platform, and for managing the deployment of Chalk into customer-owned cloud accounts across AWS and GCP
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
4+ years experience writing software to automate infrastructure management
Proficient in Python, Go, and/or Terraform
Experienced in working with AWS and/or GCP
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Have experience setting up hosted cloud resources for multiple companies
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
We are hiring experienced Frontend Software Engineers to join our team. In this role, you will be responsible for defining strong front-end architecture patterns, leading development of well abstracted reusable components, and collaborating across teams to increase developer velocity. You will excel in this role if you’re an experienced engineer with deep front-end expertise who can collaborate effectively across multiple teams and functions to deliver results.
This is an opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a large impact at a high growth start-up. You will tackle challenging engineering problems with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.
We are looking for software engineers who are comfortable solving business problems across all layers of the software stack, with a specific focus on frontend engineering. At Chalk, we build reliable data processing systems that can operate performantly at scale with a laser-focus on developer experience.
We need engineers who can build world-class user experiences across web and command-line surfaces, while also understanding and contributing to a codebase that contains ideas from compilers, query planners, and distributed systems.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role.
What you will do
Work directly with Chalk’s co-founders to productionize our first iteration
Write TypeScript (React), Python, Go
Drive frontend architecture discussions and technical breakdowns.
Expose the functionality of our core platform to data scientist and machine learning end-users in their home environments
Iterate rapidly to improve Chalk’s platform in response to customer needs
What we’re looking for
4+ years experience of professional software engineering experience
Working knowledge of computer science fundamentals. We’re not looking for experience from drilling leet code – we need folks who are comfortable building and maintaining real applications
You have a deep technical understanding of frontend technologies, patterns, and best practices. You have a firm understanding of backend systems which enable you to collaborate on problems that span the entire stack
An eye for high-quality UX
Track record of learning new concepts quickly
Ability to work autonomously & to make pragmatic tradeoffs with an eye towards business outcomes
Strong communication skills
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Experience implementing data infrastructure
Experience working with developer tools
Experience with applied machine learning or data analytics
Experience with Go
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning
Compensation
Chalk offers early team members a generous salary + equity package based on experience and competitive benefits.
Actual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including but not limited to: market, location, scope of the position and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.
Our comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.
","descriptionPlain":"About Chalk\n\nChalk (chalk.ai http://chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai http://chalk.ai.\n\nAbout the role\n\nYou are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.\n\nYour work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.\n\nWhat you will do\n\n - Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments\n\n - Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers\n\n - Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams\n\n - Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)\n\n - Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves\n\n - Help interview and grow the Engineering team\n \n\nWhat we’re looking for\n\n - Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models\n\n - 4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience\n\n - Proficient in Python, SQL\n\n - Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals\n\n - Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills\n\n - Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.\n\n - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent\n \n\nBonus points\n\n - Previous experience working with ML/data products or services\n\n - Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure\n\n - Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning \n \n \n\nCompensation\nChalk offers early team members a generous salary + equity package based on experience and competitive benefits.\n\nActual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including but not limited to: market, location, scope of the position and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.\n\nOur comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.\n\n","compensation":{"compensationTierSummary":null,"scrapeableCompensationSalarySummary":null,"compensationTiers":[],"summaryComponents":[]}},{"id":"9f25940e-9462-46c1-b992-6211ba4e8f52","title":"Forward Deployed Engineer","department":"Engineering","team":"Engineering","employmentType":"FullTime","location":"Singapore","shouldDisplayCompensationOnJobPostings":true,"secondaryLocations":[],"publishedAt":"2025-09-26T20:42:25.075+00:00","isListed":true,"isRemote":true,"workplaceType":"Remote","address":{"postalAddress":{"addressCountry":"Singapore"}},"jobUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/9f25940e-9462-46c1-b992-6211ba4e8f52","applyUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/9f25940e-9462-46c1-b992-6211ba4e8f52/application","descriptionHtml":"About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
4+ years experience of professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning.
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
Chalk is the AI data platform built for inference. Customers come to us for two halves of the same problem: the context their models and agents run on, and the runtime they run in. Both sit inside the customer's own cloud.
Forward Deployed Strategists owns the technical direction of Chalk’s integrations: what gets built, in what order, and whether it holds up. You sit alongside sales, delivery, account management, and support on your accounts, and you’re the technical judge across all of it.
You’ll work closely with FDEs, who build directly with customer engineering teams. Some of that work is model-driven: fraud, payments, underwriting, recommendations, pricing. Increasingly it is agentic. Investigation agents that sit alongside data scientists, workflow automation, trust and safety, customer support, all of it running against real production context inside the customer's own environment.
Most problems start with the customer's architecture rather than ours. You will be asked to weigh in on systems Chalk does not touch. The bar for this role is architectural depth and judgment.
Run technical discovery: get inside how a customer's systems work, what is breaking, and what they are trying to ship
Advise on their architecture and their plans, including the migration path off whatever they run today. Tell them plainly what will break, what to sequence first, and what is not worth doing
Design what they build on Chalk, and set the bar it has to clear on correctness, latency, and cost
Design agentic solutions on Chalk: what an agent is allowed to reach, how it gets evaluated against real production context before it ships, and how it runs safely inside the customer's own cloud
Design, scope, and execute tight POCs. Pick the one thing worth proving, define what a clean result looks like before anyone starts, and keep the scope from drifting
Answer the questions a customer's principal engineers ask in week three. Partner with sales on the accounts where the decision is being made
Find the work worth doing next, and judge honestly whether it is a fit
Break work into projects with clear owners and dates, and hand the deep build work to the delivery engineers who will do it
Work with account management and support to keep the technical direction of an account coherent once it is live
Take what you learn in the field back to product and engineering, and argue for the changes that matter
Real depth in production infrastructure, and a feel for how systems carrying live traffic actually fail
You have advised engineering teams on systems you did not build, and they took the advice
Technical taste. You have opinions about how systems should be built and you can defend them against people who have opinions of their own
You know how to scope a POC that proves the thing and nothing else, and you have said no to the ones that were never going to prove anything
Strong Python and SQL. You build prototypes and reference implementations, and you can read a customer's codebase and hold a conversation about it
Willing to tell a customer the thing they do not want to hear, including that a plan of theirs is wrong
You work well across a team. This role only functions if sales, delivery, account management, and support all trust your read
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
All optional. None of these are required.
Experience deploying software into a customer's own cloud
Experience getting AI agents to run reliably against real production systems and real data
Domain depth in fraud, payments, underwriting, identity, recommendations, pricing, or logistics
Rust or C++
Compensation
Actual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.
Our comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.
Chalk offers early team member equity and competitive benefits package in addition to the cash compensation.
Inclusivity
Chalk is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and provide reasonable accommodations to anyone in need of individualized support.
","descriptionPlain":"About Chalk\n\nChalk (chalk.ai http://chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai http://chalk.ai.\n\n\nABOUT THE ROLE\n\nChalk is the AI data platform built for inference. Customers come to us for two halves of the same problem: the context their models and agents run on, and the runtime they run in. Both sit inside the customer's own cloud.\n\nForward Deployed Strategists owns the technical direction of Chalk’s integrations: what gets built, in what order, and whether it holds up. You sit alongside sales, delivery, account management, and support on your accounts, and you’re the technical judge across all of it.\n\nYou’ll work closely with FDEs, who build directly with customer engineering teams. Some of that work is model-driven: fraud, payments, underwriting, recommendations, pricing. Increasingly it is agentic. Investigation agents that sit alongside data scientists, workflow automation, trust and safety, customer support, all of it running against real production context inside the customer's own environment.\n\nMost problems start with the customer's architecture rather than ours. You will be asked to weigh in on systems Chalk does not touch. The bar for this role is architectural depth and judgment.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT YOU WILL DO\n\n - Run technical discovery: get inside how a customer's systems work, what is breaking, and what they are trying to ship\n\n - Advise on their architecture and their plans, including the migration path off whatever they run today. Tell them plainly what will break, what to sequence first, and what is not worth doing\n\n - Design what they build on Chalk, and set the bar it has to clear on correctness, latency, and cost\n\n - Design agentic solutions on Chalk: what an agent is allowed to reach, how it gets evaluated against real production context before it ships, and how it runs safely inside the customer's own cloud\n\n - Design, scope, and execute tight POCs. Pick the one thing worth proving, define what a clean result looks like before anyone starts, and keep the scope from drifting\n\n - Answer the questions a customer's principal engineers ask in week three. Partner with sales on the accounts where the decision is being made\n\n - Find the work worth doing next, and judge honestly whether it is a fit\n\n - Break work into projects with clear owners and dates, and hand the deep build work to the delivery engineers who will do it\n\n - Work with account management and support to keep the technical direction of an account coherent once it is live\n\n - Take what you learn in the field back to product and engineering, and argue for the changes that matter\n\n\nWHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR\n\n - Real depth in production infrastructure, and a feel for how systems carrying live traffic actually fail\n\n - You have advised engineering teams on systems you did not build, and they took the advice\n\n - Technical taste. You have opinions about how systems should be built and you can defend them against people who have opinions of their own\n\n - You know how to scope a POC that proves the thing and nothing else, and you have said no to the ones that were never going to prove anything\n\n - Strong Python and SQL. You build prototypes and reference implementations, and you can read a customer's codebase and hold a conversation about it\n\n - Willing to tell a customer the thing they do not want to hear, including that a plan of theirs is wrong\n\n - You work well across a team. This role only functions if sales, delivery, account management, and support all trust your read\n\n - Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills\n\n\nBONUS POINTS\n\nAll optional. None of these are required.\n\n - Experience deploying software into a customer's own cloud\n\n - Experience getting AI agents to run reliably against real production systems and real data\n\n - Domain depth in fraud, payments, underwriting, identity, recommendations, pricing, or logistics\n\n - Rust or C++\n\nCompensation\n\nActual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.\n\nOur comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.\n\nChalk offers early team member equity and competitive benefits package in addition to the cash compensation.\n\nInclusivity\n\nChalk is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and provide reasonable accommodations to anyone in need of individualized support.\n\n \n\n","compensation":{"compensationTierSummary":"$180K – $250K • Offers Equity","scrapeableCompensationSalarySummary":"$180K - $250K","compensationTiers":[{"id":"c22c5202-49a1-464d-bd2b-c9a388eaf66f","tierSummary":"$180K – $250K • Offers Equity","title":null,"additionalInformation":null,"components":[{"id":"b2f678e0-a56c-4e2b-b5c8-8fc388328f44","summary":"$180K – $250K","compensationType":"Salary","interval":"1 YEAR","currencyCode":"USD","minValue":180000,"maxValue":250000},{"id":"decf7a14-a7e5-4c3e-ab4c-1cd8bc9ba55f","summary":"Offers Equity","compensationType":"EquityPercentage","interval":"NONE","currencyCode":null,"minValue":null,"maxValue":null}]}],"summaryComponents":[{"compensationType":"Salary","interval":"1 YEAR","currencyCode":"USD","minValue":180000,"maxValue":250000},{"compensationType":"EquityPercentage","interval":"NONE","currencyCode":null,"minValue":null,"maxValue":null}]}},{"id":"2f22906b-527f-4aa8-82e7-0a6f842c560e","title":"Software Engineer, Developer Productivity","department":"Engineering","team":"Engineering","employmentType":"FullTime","location":"Remote","shouldDisplayCompensationOnJobPostings":true,"secondaryLocations":[],"publishedAt":"2026-08-13T21:30:21.316+00:00","isListed":true,"isRemote":true,"workplaceType":"Remote","address":{"postalAddress":{}},"jobUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/2f22906b-527f-4aa8-82e7-0a6f842c560e","applyUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/2f22906b-527f-4aa8-82e7-0a6f842c560e/application","descriptionHtml":"
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
We are hiring a Software Engineer to make every other engineer at Chalk move faster. You will be responsible for building our internal developer platform, from Bazel and CI through to release automation, and the tooling engineers use locally.
Today this work is spread across the engineering team alongside everything else people are shipping. You would be the first person to own it outright, set the priorities, and build the function from here.
Our product runs inside customers' airgapped environments, meaning we need our code deployments done right the first time. Chalk's engine is C++ and Rust with a Python interface, and it is held to a demanding latency bar of 100k QPS in 5ms. That means CI has to catch performance regressions, not just correctness bugs.
We run a mix of GitHub Actions and Buildkite today and are currently consolidating on Buildkite and Bazel. Bazel and containerized dev environments are where the next gains will come from.
To be successful in this role, C++ and distributed systems experience matter most. You will also need strong communication skills to work across an engineering org. Developer Productivity specific experience is highly desirable but we're open to ramping someone up.
Own our Bazel build system, including toolchains, dependency management, and remote execution.
Work across the engineering organization to create a consistent experience for engineers to run and develop Chalk in containerized dev environments.
Establish test and benchmark patterns.
Own CI health, which includes speed and reliability.
Drive down test flakiness.
Make C++ and Rust builds and tests faster through toolchain work, caching, remote execution, and dependency hygiene.
5+ years of professional experience as a Software Engineer, ideally in developer productivity.
C++ coding experience as a Software Engineer.
Strong Distributed Systems experience.
Ideally have hands-on Bazel experience. You have written and debugged BUILD files and Starlark, configured toolchains, and worked through either a real migration or in a large existing workspace.
Ability to work autonomously and to make pragmatic tradeoffs with an eye towards business outcomes.
Strong communication skills.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience. Strong experience matters more here than the credential.
Experience with Nix
Experience with Buildkite
Experience with Bazel remote execution and remote caching at scale
Experience writing custom Bazel rules
Experience with benchmark infrastructure for latency sensitive systems
Experience building developer platforms used by an entire engineering org
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
Forward Deployed Engineering is where Chalk meets its customers. Our FDEs are exceptional software engineers who integrate Chalk’s platform with the best ML and engineering teams in healthcare, finance, and consumer technology — running technical pilots that win deals, onboarding new customers, and engineering feature pipelines that power use cases like fraud prevention, cancer detection, and product recommendation.
Working directly with our founders, you'll lead this team and define its future. You'll own the strategy for how Chalk engages customers technically — from pre-sales pilots through onboarding, support, and expansion — and build the organization, processes, and playbooks that let the function scale with our growth. FDE is one of the most strategically important and fastest-growing functions at Chalk, and this role will shape what it becomes.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role.
What you will do
Lead, develop, and retain Chalk's team of Forward Deployed Engineers across New York and San Francisco, and own an aggressive hiring plan as the team scales
Define the strategy and operating model for the FDE function: engagement models, account coverage, the pre-sales/post-sales balance, and how FDEs drive expansion within accounts
Own the systems that make the team run — support triage and rotations, escalation paths to Engineering, onboarding playbooks, and the processes for rolling out platform changes to customer environments
Partner closely with Sales and GTM leadership on technical pilots, evaluations, and the technical strategy behind our most important deals
Partner with Engineering leadership to channel customer learnings into the product roadmap and to sharpen the internal tooling FDEs rely on
Stay hands-on: dive into customer architectures, unblock hard technical problems, and set the technical bar for the team
Serve as an executive-level technical counterpart to customer leadership at our largest accounts
Define career paths and growth trajectories for FDEs, and champion the function's identity as we grow — deeply technical engineers embedded with customers, not sales engineering
What we're looking for
10+ years of engineering experience with 3+ years leading customer-facing engineering teams (forward deployed, solutions architecture, field engineering, or similar)
Strong hands-on technical skills — proficient in Python and SQL, comfortable going deep on customer architectures and data infrastructure
Experience across both pre-sales and post-sales complex enterprise motions: technical pilots and evaluations as well as onboarding, support, and account expansion
Proven ability to hire, develop, and retain exceptional engineers, including senior ICs
Previous experience at an early-stage, high-growth startup
Executive-level communicator who can bridge technical, business, and customer contexts
Experience building the processes and playbooks that let a customer-facing engineering team scale
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience as a forward deployed engineer or FDE leader at a high-growth startup
Experience building production ML systems, ML infrastructure, or data platforms
Experience scaling a customer-facing engineering function from single-digit to multi-team
Experience working with enterprise customers in regulated industries (fintech, healthcare)
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
Chalk is the AI data platform built for inference. Customers come to us for two halves of the same problem: the context their models and agents run on, and the runtime they run in. Both sit inside the customer's own cloud.
Forward Deployed Strategists owns the technical direction of Chalk’s integrations: what gets built, in what order, and whether it holds up. You sit alongside sales, delivery, account management, and support on your accounts, and you’re the technical judge across all of it.
You’ll work closely with FDEs, who build directly with customer engineering teams. Some of that work is model-driven: fraud, payments, underwriting, recommendations, pricing. Increasingly it is agentic. Investigation agents that sit alongside data scientists, workflow automation, trust and safety, customer support, all of it running against real production context inside the customer's own environment.
Most problems start with the customer's architecture rather than ours. You will be asked to weigh in on systems Chalk does not touch. The bar for this role is architectural depth and judgment.
Run technical discovery: get inside how a customer's systems work, what is breaking, and what they are trying to ship
Advise on their architecture and their plans, including the migration path off whatever they run today. Tell them plainly what will break, what to sequence first, and what is not worth doing
Design what they build on Chalk, and set the bar it has to clear on correctness, latency, and cost
Design agentic solutions on Chalk: what an agent is allowed to reach, how it gets evaluated against real production context before it ships, and how it runs safely inside the customer's own cloud
Design, scope, and execute tight POCs. Pick the one thing worth proving, define what a clean result looks like before anyone starts, and keep the scope from drifting
Answer the questions a customer's principal engineers ask in week three. Partner with sales on the accounts where the decision is being made
Find the work worth doing next, and judge honestly whether it is a fit
Break work into projects with clear owners and dates, and hand the deep build work to the delivery engineers who will do it
Work with account management and support to keep the technical direction of an account coherent once it is live
Take what you learn in the field back to product and engineering, and argue for the changes that matter
Real depth in production infrastructure, and a feel for how systems carrying live traffic actually fail
You have advised engineering teams on systems you did not build, and they took the advice
Technical taste. You have opinions about how systems should be built and you can defend them against people who have opinions of their own
You know how to scope a POC that proves the thing and nothing else, and you have said no to the ones that were never going to prove anything
Strong Python and SQL. You build prototypes and reference implementations, and you can read a customer's codebase and hold a conversation about it
Willing to tell a customer the thing they do not want to hear, including that a plan of theirs is wrong
You work well across a team. This role only functions if sales, delivery, account management, and support all trust your read
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
All optional. None of these are required.
Experience deploying software into a customer's own cloud
Experience getting AI agents to run reliably against real production systems and real data
Domain depth in fraud, payments, underwriting, identity, recommendations, pricing, or logistics
Rust or C++
Compensation
Actual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.
Our comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.
Chalk offers early team member equity and competitive benefits package in addition to the cash compensation.
Inclusivity
Chalk is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and provide reasonable accommodations to anyone in need of individualized support.
","descriptionPlain":"About Chalk\n\nChalk (chalk.ai http://chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai http://chalk.ai.\n\n\nABOUT THE ROLE\n\nChalk is the AI data platform built for inference. Customers come to us for two halves of the same problem: the context their models and agents run on, and the runtime they run in. Both sit inside the customer's own cloud.\n\nForward Deployed Strategists owns the technical direction of Chalk’s integrations: what gets built, in what order, and whether it holds up. You sit alongside sales, delivery, account management, and support on your accounts, and you’re the technical judge across all of it.\n\nYou’ll work closely with FDEs, who build directly with customer engineering teams. Some of that work is model-driven: fraud, payments, underwriting, recommendations, pricing. Increasingly it is agentic. Investigation agents that sit alongside data scientists, workflow automation, trust and safety, customer support, all of it running against real production context inside the customer's own environment.\n\nMost problems start with the customer's architecture rather than ours. You will be asked to weigh in on systems Chalk does not touch. The bar for this role is architectural depth and judgment.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT YOU WILL DO\n\n - Run technical discovery: get inside how a customer's systems work, what is breaking, and what they are trying to ship\n\n - Advise on their architecture and their plans, including the migration path off whatever they run today. Tell them plainly what will break, what to sequence first, and what is not worth doing\n\n - Design what they build on Chalk, and set the bar it has to clear on correctness, latency, and cost\n\n - Design agentic solutions on Chalk: what an agent is allowed to reach, how it gets evaluated against real production context before it ships, and how it runs safely inside the customer's own cloud\n\n - Design, scope, and execute tight POCs. Pick the one thing worth proving, define what a clean result looks like before anyone starts, and keep the scope from drifting\n\n - Answer the questions a customer's principal engineers ask in week three. Partner with sales on the accounts where the decision is being made\n\n - Find the work worth doing next, and judge honestly whether it is a fit\n\n - Break work into projects with clear owners and dates, and hand the deep build work to the delivery engineers who will do it\n\n - Work with account management and support to keep the technical direction of an account coherent once it is live\n\n - Take what you learn in the field back to product and engineering, and argue for the changes that matter\n\n\nWHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR\n\n - Real depth in production infrastructure, and a feel for how systems carrying live traffic actually fail\n\n - You have advised engineering teams on systems you did not build, and they took the advice\n\n - Technical taste. You have opinions about how systems should be built and you can defend them against people who have opinions of their own\n\n - You know how to scope a POC that proves the thing and nothing else, and you have said no to the ones that were never going to prove anything\n\n - Strong Python and SQL. You build prototypes and reference implementations, and you can read a customer's codebase and hold a conversation about it\n\n - Willing to tell a customer the thing they do not want to hear, including that a plan of theirs is wrong\n\n - You work well across a team. This role only functions if sales, delivery, account management, and support all trust your read\n\n - Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills\n\n\nBONUS POINTS\n\nAll optional. None of these are required.\n\n - Experience deploying software into a customer's own cloud\n\n - Experience getting AI agents to run reliably against real production systems and real data\n\n - Domain depth in fraud, payments, underwriting, identity, recommendations, pricing, or logistics\n\n - Rust or C++\n\nCompensation\n\nActual compensation awarded to successful candidates will be based on several factors, including individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process.\n\nOur comprehensive total package plays a major role in how we recognize individuals for the impact they will have on Chalk’s growth and us achieving our goals.\n\nChalk offers early team member equity and competitive benefits package in addition to the cash compensation.\n\nInclusivity\n\nChalk is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and inclusion and provide reasonable accommodations to anyone in need of individualized support.\n\n \n\n","compensation":{"compensationTierSummary":"$180K – $250K • Offers Equity","scrapeableCompensationSalarySummary":"$180K - $250K","compensationTiers":[{"id":"c10567e3-dde2-4f6e-89c6-40eb3d00ad82","tierSummary":"$180K – $250K • Offers Equity","title":null,"additionalInformation":null,"components":[{"id":"247747ea-5467-47b9-9502-9c9f8a74f188","summary":"$180K – $250K","compensationType":"Salary","interval":"1 YEAR","currencyCode":"USD","minValue":180000,"maxValue":250000},{"id":"a2c3acbb-232e-436d-8618-44b27bf39350","summary":"Offers Equity","compensationType":"EquityPercentage","interval":"NONE","currencyCode":null,"minValue":null,"maxValue":null}]}],"summaryComponents":[{"compensationType":"Salary","interval":"1 YEAR","currencyCode":"USD","minValue":180000,"maxValue":250000},{"compensationType":"EquityPercentage","interval":"NONE","currencyCode":null,"minValue":null,"maxValue":null}]}},{"id":"927c74a5-1b40-490d-b3be-a29baec4db6f","title":"Forward Deployed Engineer - New Grad","department":"Engineering","team":"Engineering","employmentType":"FullTime","location":"SF","shouldDisplayCompensationOnJobPostings":true,"secondaryLocations":[{"location":"NY","address":{"postalAddress":{"postalCode":"10010","addressRegion":"New York","streetAddress":"509 W 21st St, Unit 401","addressCountry":"United States","addressLocality":"New York"}}}],"publishedAt":"2026-11-10T22:00:30.671+00:00","isListed":true,"isRemote":false,"workplaceType":"OnSite","address":{"postalAddress":{"postalCode":"94108","addressRegion":"California","streetAddress":"55 Stockton St, Floor 4","addressCountry":"United States","addressLocality":"San Francisco"}},"jobUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/927c74a5-1b40-490d-b3be-a29baec4db6f","applyUrl":"https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/chalk/927c74a5-1b40-490d-b3be-a29baec4db6f/application","descriptionHtml":"
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
About the role
This position is scheduled to start in Spring 2027.
You are an exceptional Software Engineer who wants to work directly alongside the people using what you build. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be embedded with our customers' data engineering, data science, and machine learning teams and write code that connects Chalk to their unique infrastructure and use cases. As the subject matter expert in the room, you will work with these data teams to build efficient ML and AI systems. When a customer needs something that Chalk doesn't do yet, you will prove out that new capability and personally build the first version into our platform, where it becomes available to every customer.
Your work will power use cases like cancer detection, fraud prevention, and product recommendation. This is your opportunity to join us in-person as an early employee and make a significant impact at a high growth start-up.
We're in the office 5 days a week. When unavoidable conflicts come up, we’re flexible. This is not a hybrid role. Traveling to customer sites is rare since you support teams from multiple customers while working in our office.
What you will do
Write code across the entire code base to implement Chalk technology for Chalk customers and prospects. You will become familiar with Chalk infrastructure and find the best way to integrate and implement them in different environments
Discover customer's needs and then design, implement, and ship new features for customers
Work closely with our Engineering and Sales teams
Act as the primary technical point of contact pre-sales and post-sales (when we are onboarding a new customer or supporting an existing one)
Recommend new products to customers as their business evolves
Help interview and grow the Engineering team
What we’re looking for
Technical background including experience writing software or building ML models
Professional backend software engineering experience
Proficient in Python, SQL
Ability to collaborate effectively in teams of technical and non-technical individuals
Excellent written and verbal communication, problem-solving, storytelling, and analytical skills
Experience working closely with sales teams and customers is a plus.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
Bonus points
Previous experience working with ML/data products or services
Understanding of Machine Learning Ops/Infrastructure
Previous experience as a forward-deployed engineer in a high-growth startup focusing on Machine Learning
About Chalk
Chalk (chalk.ai) is the platform for production AI. Trusted by enterprises including Whatnot, Grindr, Mission Lane, Turo, and Apartment List, Chalk brings together context, runtime, and learning for agents and models. Chalk’s Context Engine delivers live context by querying data across warehouses, databases, streams, and APIs, straight from the source. Chalk’s runtime powers agents and models with infrastructure and governed access to LLMs and tools. Together, these capabilities help teams build AI that understands their business, continuously improves, and runs reliably in production. We've recently raised a $50 million Series A, led by Felicis. Learn more at chalk.ai.
We're hiring a Director of Sales who will grow new business at Chalk. We already have strong Account Executives and Forward Deployed teams that win hard technical evaluations. Our buyers are engineering leaders who test everything we claim. We need someone to build for scale across segments, territories, and products, and to design how we qualify, forecast, price, and hire.
You'll report to our VP Revenue, lead the Account Executive team, and work every day with our founders, the SDR team, our Forward Deployed teams, post-sales, product, and marketing.
We work in person Monday through Friday in our SF and NY offices. We don't currently offer remote or hybrid positions.
Own new business and build the org. Drive pipeline and bookings for net-new customers. Build the coverage and hiring plans, then hire the next wave of AEs.
Lead and develop the team. Coach AEs, set the performance bar, and build onboarding that ramps reps fast on a technical product.
Design the sales process. Write the stage definitions, qualification criteria, and pricing and discount approvals that hold up as the team grows.
Turn pilots into commitments. Set the entry criteria, success metrics, and timelines that move pilots into production.
Run the operating rhythm. Own the weekly forecast and pipeline reporting, and partner with RevOps and finance on quota and comp plans.
Shape how we go to market. Bring what you learn in deals back to product and pricing, and work with growth to turn product adoption into pipeline.
Win the biggest deals as a team. Step into strategic opportunities alongside founders and our Forward Deployed teams.
Partner across GTM. Work with SDRs on meeting quality and handoffs, with post-sales on onboarding and expansion, and with marketing on pipeline targets.
7+ years in B2B sales, with 2+ leading a team. You've carried a quota and beaten it consistently. As a leader, you've hired your own reps and gotten them past quota.
Data-driven, first-principles operator. You've taken an early sales team to a repeatable motion. You think in systems, run the business on data, and would rather design the motion than run one someone else designed.
A track record selling technical products. Developer tools, data platforms, APIs, cloud, or AI infrastructure, sold to engineering, data, and ML teams. You can go deep with an engineer without calling for backup.
Closed on consumption. You've structured and won usage-based or committed-spend deals, and you know how to forecast them.
Fluent in sales-led, product-led, and hybrid motions. You've sold to developers and know how product-led demand becomes an enterprise deal.
Rigor with judgment. You learned the craft somewhere known for its sales rigor. You know which parts of the motion to harden and where to stay flexible and experiment.
Candid and hungry. You give direct feedback and expect it back. You move fast and care more about the team's number than your own credit.
Experience selling through cloud marketplaces or co-selling with cloud and data platform partners
Experience designing territory, comp, and forecast plans
Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance
FSA, HSA, and expert healthcare guidance
Retirement savings
15 company holidays and 15 days of personal time off each year
Flex commuter benefits
Daily lunch and dinner on Chalk, and a ride home if you're staying late