Forward Deployed Engineer - Birmingham, AL

COMPANY OVERVIEW Realm http://realmalliance.com builds AI for the mining industry. We integrate with existing mine infrastructure — cameras, SCADA systems, drones, and data repositories — to predict equipment failures, detect unsafe behaviors, and optimize operations. Our platform deploys intelligence in various ways to improve productivity and safety — monitoring PPE compliance via computer vision, optimizing froth flotation processes, analyzing longwall shearer performance, tracking MSHA citation patterns, and more. Our founders started their careers at Palantir before going on to build Blend Labs (publicly traded fintech, founded as CTO) and Even (acquired by Walmart). Our leadership team brings experience from Uber, Metropolis, and other high-bar organizations. We're a small, senior team that ships daily to production mines. AI isn't just our product — it's how we build. We're an AI-first engineering team that uses the latest models and tooling throughout our development process, moving faster and at higher quality than traditional teams our size. Our culture values high agency, deep ownership, collaboration, and autonomy across a fully remote workforce. Teams here move quickly and make meaningful contributions to a product that shapes global industrial outcomes. THE ROLE As our first Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be the technical point of contact for customers in the field—owning integrations, onsite deployment work, and the translation of real-world operational needs into robust, scalable technical solutions. You’ll work hands-on with customer systems, troubleshoot complex environments, and rapidly prototype tools and integrations needed to make Realm successful in mission-critical settings. This role is deeply technical and field-oriented—focused on making the product work seamlessly in demanding industrial and government environments. You’ll embed with users, uncover operational realities, validate technical assumptions, and ensure our technology performs reliably under real-world constraints. This is an ideal role for someone who enjoys building in messy environments, thrives on customer interaction, and takes pride in shipping solutions that matter. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Spend >50% of your time onsite with customers in Birmingham, AL - Build a ground-truth understanding of customer operations—shadowing operators, analysts, and frontline teams to understand workflows, constraints, and integration requirements - Rapidly prototype tools and integrations in the field (“vibe-coding”) to validate ideas, solve urgent problems, and prove feasibility before handing off to engineering - Troubleshoot and diagnose complex operational or systems issues across varied and sometimes degraded environments - Translate field insights into clear technical requirements and integration specs for the engineering team - Lead all technical integration work, including APIs, data pipelines, hardware/software interfaces, and security/compliance-sensitive deployment setups - Work closely with engineering to ensure features, interfaces, and infrastructure align with real-world operational needs - Represent customer technical realities internally—ensuring feasibility, reliability, and operational constraints are deeply understood - Decompose ambiguous, real-world problems into well-scoped technical workstreams - Ensure customers succeed in mission-critical contexts by enabling smooth deployment, data flow, connectivity, and operational reliability - Inform the product and engineering teams with data, field observations, and frontline feedback—advocating for changes that reflect true customer needs - Contribute to the foundation, process, and culture that will scale Realm’s forward deployed engineering function WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR MUST-HAVE QUALIFICATIONS - 2+ years of software engineering or forward deployed / mission operations experience, with a record of shipping impactful work - Strong technical fluency and the ability to work closely with