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Forward Deployed Engineer

San Francisco, California

ABOUT BASELAYER

Every business in America needs a bank account to exist. The system that decides whether they're real, who's behind them, and whether they're a risk, runs on infrastructure from the 1980s. We're rebuilding that layer from scratch.

Baselayer is the identity layer for institutions across the United States — the most complete business graph in America and every human tied to it. We fuse public records, IRS data, sanctions lists, web signals, and fraud telemetry from 2,200+ financial institutions into a single graph that resolves any business and the humans behind it in milliseconds. The legacy credit bureaus took 50 years to build something that gets 60% match rates. We've built something that gets 98% in under two years.

Today we're trusted by over 20% of financial institutions in America — including FIS, Rho, Socure and leading loan infrastructure providers. But the graph is becoming infrastructure for anyone who needs to know if a business is real and worth trusting: gig platforms, marketplaces, AI companies, and commerce infrastructure at scale.

Trust is the substrate of every financial transaction. We're rebuilding it.

ABOUT THE TEAM

AI agents are starting to transact: opening accounts, buying services, moving money on behalf of the businesses and people behind them. Every one of those transactions has a counterparty asking the question banks have always asked: who am I dealing with, and can I trust them? Today's identity infrastructure wasn't built to answer it at agent speed.

The Agentic Economy team is extending Baselayer's business graph into the trust layer for agentic commerce: verifiable credentials that bind an agent to the verified business and human behind it, a registry counterparties can query in real time, and verification APIs that plug into the networks, platforms, and protocols where agent transactions happen.

We run like a startup inside a startup: a small senior team led by our GM of Agentic Economy, working directly with payment networks, banks, wallet providers, and agent platforms. The category is being defined right now; the standards, seats, and infrastructure decisions of the next 18 months will be consequential for a decade.

ABOUT THE ROLE

You're the engineering arm of the Agentic Economy team: the person who turns partner conversations into working software. You'll ship the surfaces partners and their agents actually touch: verification APIs, our MCP server, credential flows, demos, and reference implementations. When a payment network wants to see real-time counterparty verification inside an agentic checkout, you build it, often within days.

You'll sit in technical calls with partners, scope integrations on the spot, and work closely with our core platform engineering while owning the last mile yourself. This is a role for an engineer who wants the field, not just the repo.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

  • Ship partner integrations of our agentic economy products from first technical call to production
  • Build prototypes, demos, and reference implementations for partner meetings, communities, and conferences, often on short notice
  • Own the developer- and agent-facing quality of our surfaces: API ergonomics, documentation, sample repos, sandbox environments, integration guides, technical posts
  • Get our MCP server listed, featured, and performing in the connection hubs, directories, and marketplaces where agent builders look
  • Optimize the agent-facing experience itself: tool descriptions, response design, error handling 
  • Show up in agent builder communities (Discord servers, hackathons, working groups, open-source repos) as a builder
  • Be the engineering voice in partner calls; translate partner constraints into clear specs for the core platform team
  • Feed field learnings back into the product roadmap alongside our PM and GM

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

  • 5+ years shipping production software; strong TypeScript and/or Python
  • Deep API design and integration experience: REST, webhooks, OAuth/JWT auth flows
  • You've worked directly with customers or partners
  • Hands-on with the modern agent stack: MCP, LLM tool-calling, agent frameworks
  • Can take a demo from idea to working in days, and an integration to production in weeks
  • Thrive in ambiguity: startup pace, end-to-end ownership

WHAT SETS YOU APART

  • You've built with MCP, LLM tool-calling, or agent frameworks
  • Familiarity with verifiable credential standards (SD-JWT-VC, DIDs, HTTP message signatures) and/or identity infrastructure
  • Payments or fintech background 
  • Prior forward-deployed, solutions engineering, or founding engineer experience
  • An existing footprint in AI and agent-builder communities

WORK LOCATION

  • Based in SF; 4 days per week in office

COMPENSATION

  • Salary Range: $160,000 - $230,000 + Equity

BENEFITS

  • Time off when you need it: Flexible PTO so you can recharge without red tape
  • In-person energy: We're based in SF and meet in the office 4 days a week
  • Competitive compensation: We pay well and back it with equity. We want you to think and act like an owner
  • Career rocket fuel: You'll help build the foundation of a high-growth startup, working side by side with experienced founders and team members who've done it before
  • Benefits on us: We cover 100% of your health, dental, and vision premiums. No surprise deductions from your paycheck
  • 401(k) with company match: We match your contributions so your future self benefits too
  • HSA contributions included: We contribute to your HSA on applicable plans, so your coverage works as hard as you do
  • Stay healthy, stay sharp: A $250 annual gym stipend to help you bring your best self to work, and everywhere else
  • A seat at the table: We believe in transparency, radical candor, and giving every team member a voice 🔥

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