Forward Deployed Engineer
Ascend
$170,000 - $210,000 / year
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Description
What We Do
Insurance is a $10T industry still running on PDFs, email threads, and manual reconciliation. Ascend is changing that. We built the first and only complete financial operations platform purpose-built for insurance — combining accounting automation, payments, and premium financing in a single vertically integrated solution. In five years, we've become the market leader: over 4,000 businesses, including more than half of the 50 largest brokers in the country, trust Ascend to bring clarity to complex accounting operations from collection to close.
How We Do It
Ascend automates the financial operations that insurers, MGAs, and agencies run every day and embeds directly into the transactions where money actually moves. Point solutions are easy to build and even easier to copy. The companies that win won't just sell tools — they'll capture value where the money actually moves. Ascend is built for exactly that moment. Our customers don't just adopt software, they unlock measurable efficiency with a proven 5-7x return on investment.
Our team is onsite in San Francisco. We bring deep expertise in insurance, fintech, and financial infrastructure to build what the industry has never had.
Why We Do It
The insurance industry intermediates trillions of dollars — and almost none of that infrastructure was built for the modern era. Legacy systems aren't just inefficient; they're a ceiling on what the industry can become.
Ascend's mission is to become the leading financial automation platform for insurance by 2030 — powering the financial operations of the entire industry and transforming the way trillions of dollars move. We're not building another point solution, we're building the financial backbone of insurance.
Your Role
Ascend is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to join our team on-site in San Francisco to build custom integrations and own the technical delivery of customer implementations.
You will work directly with customers, Sales, Customer Success, and Engineering to understand customer workflows and turn ambiguous, high-stakes problems into practical solutions. You will write production code, build API integrations and custom features, and resolve technical blockers to launch and adoption. Your work will help unblock deals, reduce time to go-live, and embed Ascend in customers’ day-to-day operations.
Responsibilities Will Include
Objective #1: In your first 30 days:
- Understand Ascend's platform, product, and customer workflows by collaborating with team members and engaging with customers
- Learn Ascend’s platform, APIs, account configurations, and connected third-party systems
- Deliver a technical plan for an active integration, including requirements, data flows, dependencies, and success criteria
Objective #2: In your first 60 days:
- Own the technical workstream for a customer implementation, partnering with Customer Success on launch timelines and adoption
- Build and deploy custom API integrations, webhooks, and data workflows that connect Ascend to customer systems
- Configure accounts, validate data flows, and lead technical testing with customers
- Partner with Sales and Customer Success to build demos, integrations, or features that remove blockers to a deal or renewal
Objective #3: In your first 90 days and beyond:
- Independently own account setup, configuration, and complex integrations for new customers from technical scoping through go-live
- Lead technical conversations with customers and drive technical delivery in partnership with Customer Success
- Build integrations, custom features, and internal tools that embed Ascend in enterprise customer workflows
- Help drive adoption by working with customers to put solutions into daily use and remove barriers to sustained usage
- Resolve most technical issues independently, bringing in Engineering when a broader product fix is needed
- Turn recurring customer needs and one-off builds into product features, reusable integrations, and implementation playbooks
Must Have
- 3+ years of experience in implementation, solutions, technical support, or forward deployed engineering
- Experience working at a growth-stage startup
- Experience with relational databases and strong SQL
- Hands-on experience with APIs, webhooks, and data integrations
- Strong debugging skills and clear communication with customers
- A strong desire to learn new skills and solve business problems
Nice to Have
- Familiarity or interest in learning Ruby on Rails
- Familiarity with building external APIs and integrations with platforms such as Salesforce
- Experience with payments, fintech, or insurance products
Tech Stack & Processes
- Ruby on Rails API hosted on Heroku
- Next.js with TypeScript hosted on Vercel
- Postgres and Redis for storage
- Continuous integration and delivery
Base Salary Range: $170,000–$210,000
Benefits
- Unlimited PTO 🌴
- Meaningful equity 🤑
- Dog friendly office 🐕
- Commuter benefits 🚌
- Free lunch in office everyday 🥡
- Health care for you and your dependents 🍎
Equal Opportunity
We are committed to equal opportunity employment and embrace diversity within our organization. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
We encourage candidates to apply even if their experience doesn't precisely match this opportunity. We value diversity and are dedicated to equal opportunity employment.
Benefits
- paid time off
- stock options
About this role
Ascend is rebuilding insurance's financial backbone, and this role puts you at the center of that transformation. As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you'll work directly with enterprise customers—including half of the country's top 50 insurance brokers—to implement custom integrations and own the technical delivery of their implementations. You'll write production code, build API workflows, and solve the high-stakes problems that unlock deals and drive adoption, working across a vertically integrated platform that combines accounting automation, payments, and premium financing.
The role demands someone comfortable moving between customer conversations and hands-on engineering. You'll need at least three years in implementation, solutions, or similar technical customer-facing work, plus solid experience with relational databases, SQL, APIs, and webhooks. The tech stack centers on Ruby on Rails, Next.js, Postgres, and Redis. What matters most is your ability to debug independently, communicate clearly under pressure, and learn quickly—you'll own account setup and complex integrations from scoping through go-live, and turn recurring customer needs into reusable solutions.
This is a full-time, in-office role in San Francisco with a base salary of $170,000–$210,000, meaningful equity, and standard benefits including unlimited PTO and daily free lunch. If you've thrived at a growth-stage startup and want to build infrastructure rather than point solutions, this is worth a close look.
How this employer is doing
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- Recent Acquisition
In the news
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Pay for this role
$170,000 to $210,000 per year
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