Forward Deployed AI Engineer, Operations
Zipline · South San Francisco, CA
$112,500–$300,000from the description
Jul 10, 2026
South San Francisco, CA
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
Senior level · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 1,150 people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 420–1,500
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $190,744 (middle half $167,095–$224,501). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The title 'Forward Deployed AI Engineer' carries no explicit seniority level, so advertised seniority is Unspecified; however, the scope (end-to-end ownership, direct report to Head of Operations, startup-CTO framing) supports a Senior classification.
SOC is a genuine toss-up between Software Developers (15-1252) and Data Scientists (15-2051): the role builds production AI/GenAI systems (software engineering) but also requires ML fundamentals, LLM experience, and data pipelines (data science). Primary day-to-day work is shipping production AI tools, so 15-1252 was chosen with 15-2051 as the runner-up.
The JD explicitly states 'We do not need specific degrees; we need results,' so the degree requirement is set to None.
The compensation range ($112,500–$300,000) is described as a 'starting cash range' and is notably wide, reflecting the broad candidate profile targeted.
Travel up to 50% is listed as 'helpful' in the requirements section but 'must be able to travel up to 50%' in the logistics section — treated as a role condition rather than a technical skill, so not emitted as a skill.
'Data processing pipelines' and 'analytics tools' are named as required capabilities in the requirements section but without specific tool names; they are retained as skills because the JD explicitly calls them out as experience requirements rather than mere context.
The role is in-office at South San Francisco HQ; remote is set to false.
Read the full posting
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