Forward Deployed Engineer

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 based in San Francisco and Columbus. 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