Forward Deployed Engineer

Forward Deployed Engineer
Canvas Labs · Sketch (getsketch.ai)
Remote · 1–3 years · INR 12 LPA + ESOPs
ABOUT THE ROLE
Our customers don't need another help doc. They need an engineer who sits with them.
Sketch puts AI agents inside Slack, WhatsApp, and email. It reads what a company says in chats, meetings, and inboxes, and turns it into tasks, follow-ups, reports, and answers.
Our customers are founders of agencies and product companies. They see Sketch work in a demo and say "I want this." Then they have to connect their WhatsApp groups, their CRM, and their inbox, and decide what Sketch should do first. That's where they get stuck.
You're the person who gets them unstuck. You sit with them, wire Sketch into how their team already works, and come back to our engineers with exactly what broke and why.
The industry calls this a forward deployed engineer. At a big company it's four jobs: sales engineer, onboarding, support, and a slice of product management. Here it's one.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Sell by showing. Run demos for founders inside a real Slack workspace, and get Sketch to do one real job before the call ends.
• Get customers live. Connect their WhatsApp groups, Gmail, CRM, and project tools. Write the automations they ask for. Stay until the team uses Sketch without you.
• Be the first person they call. When a connection drops or an automation fires twice, you hear first. Fix what you can. For the rest, hand engineering a clean repro.
• Turn calls into product. Spot the request five customers make before anyone else hears it once. Write it up, help scope it, and sometimes build the first version yourself.
• Run the small projects. Custom workflows, new connectors, two-week pilots. You plan them and hold the dates.
• Write it down. Turn every onboarding into a better setup guide, so the next customer goes live faster.
A WEEK IN THIS JOB
Monday: An agency founder wants every client WhatsApp group turned into a task list with owners. You set it up and walk their account managers through it.
Tuesday: A demo with a product company. Their CTO asks how permissions work. You answer without calling anyone.
Wednesday: A customer's morning summary stopped arriving. You find out why before they message twice.
Thursday: Three customers asked for the same connector this month. You make the case for it in planning.
Friday: A finance team wants their CRM checked against last week's meetings. You build it as an automation and show them the first report.
WHAT YOU'LL WORK WITH
TypeScript and Node.js, Slack Bolt, the Claude Agent SDK, MCP, REST APIs, webhooks, and OAuth. Plus the tools our customers run on: Gmail, Google Drive, Notion, Linear, ClickUp, Zoho.
You don't need all of it on day one. You need to read code you didn't write, and write a script that works.
WHO YOU ARE
• 1–3 years building software, in a job, as a freelancer, or at an agency. Side projects count if real people used them.
• You can explain an OAuth error to a founder who has never heard the word, then explain that founder's problem to an engineer in three lines.
• A call with a frustrated customer doesn't ruin your day. You leave it with a plan and a date.
• You know when to fix something yourself, when to pull in engineering, and when to tell a customer no.
• You've built something with an LLM, and you know where it fails.
• You work well remote. You write things down and update people before they ask.
• Bonus: you've worked at an agency, built for agency clients, or started something of your own.
If you only want to write code, this isn't the role. If you only want to talk to customers, it isn't either.
YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS
• Days 1–30: Onboard customers alongside Himanshu, our founder. Write the onboarding playbook as you go.
• Days 31–60: Run demos and onboarding on your own. Own the customer support channel.
• Days 61–90: Own onboarding end to end, measured by one number we agree on together.
HOW WE HIRE
1. Apply through the form below.
2. If you're shortlisted, we send you a short assignment
3. A final conversation with the founders.
WHY JOIN
• You see the product from both sides: the customer's Slack and our codebase.
• You work directly with Himanshu Kalra (founder) and Roopak Nijhara (co-founder and CTO). What you hear on a Monday call can be in the product by Friday.
• Canvas Labs has shipped 14 AI products since 2023. Sketch is what we're building now, and you'll be the person closest to the people who use it.
• INR 12 LPA plus ESOPs.

Work arrangement
Yes