Staff Forward Deployed Engineer - Applied AI

About Rula

We believe that mental health is just as important as physical health. We recognize that mental health issues can be complex and multifaceted, and we are dedicated to treating the whole person, not just the symptoms.

We aim to create a world where mental health is no longer stigmatized or marginalized, but rather is embraced as an integral part of one's overall well-being. By providing quality care that is both evidence-based and compassionate, we empower individuals to take charge of their mental health and achieve their full potential.

Rula is a remote-first company hiring across most U.S. states (excluding Hawaii).

About the Role

Rula's business and clinical teams lose hours every week to manual work, and we want AI to give that time back. As a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, you will sit with a team, learn how the work actually gets done, and ship tools they use every week, often turning a six-to-eight-hour task into under thirty minutes. You stay until the team runs each tool on its own, then turn what you learned into building blocks that help the next team move faster. Because we serve patients in mental health care, privacy is part of the design from day one.

Required Qualifications

• Experience & Ownership: 8+ years shipping production-quality software systems (consumer or business) with end-to-end ownership of outcomes.
• Rapid Tool Delivery: Proven track record of shipping tools or products used weekly by customers or business teams, supported by usage telemetry.
• Customer-Centric Discovery: Deep experience learning operational workflows through observation, interviews, or data before designing software solutions.
• AI-Fluency & Engineering Workflow: Daily use of coding agents (specifying, testing, and reviewing output diffs) with rigorous evaluation practices (test sets, evals) and privacy-by-design standards (synthetic/masked data, isolating clinical content from operational tools).

Preferred Qualifications

• Measurement Infrastructure: Experience building custom measurement frameworks for cost, usage, and impact tracking when standard vendor dashboards were unavailable.
• Forward-Deployed Experience: Direct prior experience being forward-deployed to non-engineering business teams or external customer organizations.
• Model & Cost Optimization: Practical experience migrating systems across different LLM models to optimize costs while maintaining quality guardrails.
• Integration with Legacy/Messy Systems: Proven ability to integrate AI into complex business platforms with imperfect data/APIs (e.g., CRM, billing, scheduling).
• Technical Enablement: Track record of coaching non-engineering team members to build or adopt software workflows independently.

Benefits

• 100% Remote Work Environment: Flexible working hours to support a healthy work-life balance (U.S. based, excluding Hawaii)
• Competitive Pay & Benefits: Full transparency of pay ranges
• Comprehensive Health Coverage: Medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and FSA/HSA
• Retirement: 401(k) plan access
• Generous Time Off: Including 2 company-wide shutdown weeks each year for self-care
• Paid Parental Leave: For all parents (birthing, non-birthing, adopting, fostering)
• Mental Health & Support: Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Team Gatherings: Quarterly department stipend for team-building or in-person events
• Home Office & Tech: New hire home office stipend and $50/month stipend for internet/cell phone expenses
• Wellness: Year-round initiatives and a $50/month wellness stipend