Forward-Deployed AI Engineer, Backend

Draftwise is hiring a forward-deployed engineer to embed with a law firm and translate precedent and playbooks into an ontology, then build the backend and just enough frontend to make the product match how they work.

Responsibilities

• Model a firm’s precedent and playbooks into an ontology, then implement and maintain the backend that powers it
• Extend or build platform functionality when the product cannot meet specific firm needs
• Embed with the firm to learn how lawyers draft and iterate until the workflow works the way they work
• Own features end to end and understand how the pieces work together
• Write and test prompts, build retrieval and evaluation scaffolding, and evaluate quality on real customer data
• Treat profiling, query tuning, and cost work as regular engineering to improve scale and performance
• Take early ownership of parts of a firm rollout and troubleshoot where a playbook does not map cleanly to the product
• Ship UI changes without waiting for others

Requirements

• Backend as the center of gravity: comfort with SQL, API design, and debugging services you did not write
• Comfort with the customer: ask precise questions and clearly state what you still need to learn
• Ability to turn a vague problem into a model
• Interest in LLMs and their limits
• High ownership and low ego

Technologies

• Postgres
• OpenSearch
• Graph database
• AWS
• TypeScript
• React
• Microsoft Word
• Claude Code

What You Will Work On

• Ontology modeling for legal knowledge
• Backend services behind drafting, review, and search
• LLM systems in production
• Scale and performance work
• Deployments into law firms with a senior Forward Deployed Engineer alongside you
• Enough frontend to finish the job

Nice to Have

• Project or internship experience with retrieval systems, evaluation harnesses, or agent frameworks
• Any experience in front of customers, including consulting, support, or solutions work
• Exposure to legal, financial, or other document-heavy domains
• Experience shipping to real users, including personal projects

Benefits

• Meaningful equity package for every engineer
• Joining at Series A, while your work can still influence the company’s trajectory

Compensation

• USD 135,000 - 175,000 per year

Interview Process

• Intro call with the hiring manager
• Technical conversation on a system you built
• Screen share coding exercises (~1 hour) focused on backend, data modeling, and debugging
• Take-home project (~3 hours) on a self-contained problem using the team’s stack and AI tools; rate and evaluation criteria are shared in advance
• Final conversation with a founder