Senior Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), Strategic Accounts

Company Overview Deepgram is bringing the world's most natural interface, voice, to the technology we use every day. Our speech models and real-time infrastructure power AI systems that keep up with the way people actually speak. More than 5,000 organizations run conversational voice AI on Deepgram in production, including Twilio, Cloudflare, Sierra, Decagon, Vapi, Cresta, Granola, and Jack in the Box. The Deepgram Voice Agent Platform brings together speech-to-text, text-to-speech and speech-to-speech, with voice-native foundation models available through cloud APIs or self-hosted and on-premises deployments. Built for accuracy, low latency and cost efficiency, Deepgram makes high-quality voice experiences practical to build and run at scale. More than 650,000 developers have used Deepgram to process more than 200,000 years of audio. Every day, more of the world's conversations with AI run on our models. AI-First by Default At Deepgram, we expect an AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren't optional, they're core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance. Every team member who works at Deepgram is expected to actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work. We measure how effectively AI is applied to deliver results, and consistent, creative use of the latest AI capabilities is key to success here. Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do. Additionally, we move at the pace of AI. Change is rapid, and you can expect your day-to-day work to evolve just as quickly. If you're energized by experimenting, adapting, and learning constantly, you'll thrive here. Expect your day-to-day to evolve as fast as the technology does. Opportunity: Enterprise restaurant deployments are where voice AI meets the messiness of the real world: legacy systems, high transaction volumes, operational edge cases, and technology that has to work reliably during the busiest moments of the day. In this role, you will embed with leading restaurant brands and technology partners to make those deployments successful. You will learn how their systems work, design the integration path, write code, troubleshoot production issues, and adapt Deepgram's platform to the constraints of live restaurant operations. You will work directly with customer engineering teams and business leaders, owning the technical path from early discovery through go-live and optimization. Your impact will extend beyond any single customer. You will identify patterns across deployments, translate field learnings into product improvements, and build the tools, reference architectures, and playbooks that help the team deploy faster and more reliably across large restaurant fleets. This role is for an engineer who wants direct ownership of customer outcomes and enjoys turning complex, ambiguous deployments into repeatable systems. The goal is simple: make every Deepgram for Restaurants deployment feel effortless to the customer and deliver measurable value from day one. Location: This role is based in New York City or San Francisco, where many of our customers and partners are located. Being close to them helps us move quickly and stay connected to their needs. This role also includes occasional travel to meet with customers, support sales engagements, and participate in key onsite interactions. What You'll Own: • Customer engineering partnership: Embed with customer engineering teams as a trusted technical peer. Lead technical discovery and solutioning for prospects and customers. • Technical integration and deployment: Own the end-to-end technical implementation of Deepgram's voice AI platform for enterprise customers — from scoping and architecture through go-live and optimization. • Configuration and customization: Adapt and configure Deepgram's platform to meet each customer's unique operational requirements — menu structures, ordering flows, POS integrations, edge cases, and everything in between. • Production excellence: Monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve technical issues in live deployments. Serve as an escalation point for complex technical issues when necessary. • Deployment infrastructure leadership: Codify patterns into tools, playbooks, reference architectures, and building blocks the broader team can use for other deployments and customers. • Feedback loop to product and engineering: Translate real-world deployment challenges into actionable requirements for Deepgram's product and engineering teams. You are the voice of the customer inside the building. You'll Love This Role If You: • You are hands-on. You write code, read logs, and ship fixes — you don't just coordinate. When a customer has a technical problem, you roll up your sleeves and solve it. • You operate with extreme ownership and urgency. You treat every customer d