Lead - Forward Deployed Engineer

realfast is India's first post-AI IT services company, built from scratch around one metric: how quickly a signed contract becomes working software a client is paying for. Founded by the team that scaled Gojek and backed by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India & SEA) and RTP Global.

Our platform, Exo, powers the entire delivery operation. It ingests client documentation, codebases, and requirements within hours, compressing weeks of traditional discovery into days, then works alongside our teams to deliver production-ready solutions. We've delivered production-ready solutions in days that traditionally take months. The methodology behind this is Real Agile, built specifically for how IT services works in the AI era.

We hire for judgment, because everything that doesn't require it is already automated. What's left is the job.

Here's what we're looking for

Everything an FDE is - a hacker-coded engineer who ships fast and understands why the business cares - but you've done it before. Shipped in ambiguous environments. Led teams through complexity. And you still write code every day. You don't just manage. You build.

You'll lead a team of FDEs on client projects, working alongside AI Transformation Leads. You own high-complexity projects end-to-end - product design, technical architecture, trade-offs, delivery. The problems are messy. The timelines are aggressive. You figure it out. You're deeply embedded in client work. But you also bring back learnings, patterns, and insights that shape the platform we're building. You spend your days figuring out how to use AI agents and coding assistants to make your whole team faster.

What you'll do

• Lead client engagements - drive delivery and raise the bar on what your team ships

• Partner with AI Transformation Leads to deliver software that moves client metrics

• Work with customers, consultants, and cross-functional teams to build relationships, deliver software, and spot what comes next

• Operate in cockpit mode. You steer. Your agents execute. Claude Code, Codex, and others write code, run tests, open PRs, update tickets, read and prioritise your email - GitHub, Jira, Salesforce, Ashby, calendar, all of it. You engage with these systems through your agents, not around them. And you set that standard for your team

• Break hard engineering problems into shippable pieces and get them out the door

• Make smart trade-offs between elegant code and shipping fast

• Unblock your team. Remove obstacles that slow delivery

• Build AI-powered solutions - LLMs, agents, automation. Whatever the client needs

• Feed learnings back to the platform - what worked, what broke, what to build next

• Help build the team by mentoring engineers and spotting people who can operate at this speed

What you'll bring

Experience

• 7-10 years of software engineering experience

• You've led a team of IC makers - dev, QA, design, PM, BA, whatever the function - and kept them shipping

• Experience building applications from scratch - language and paradigm don't matter, but discipline and craft do

• Experience solving 0-to-1 problems - identifying product-market fit, iterating with users, shipping

Technical Skills

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and architectural judgement

• Hands-on across the full stack - front-end, back-end, data pipelines, AI models

• You understand how businesses make money with software

Leadership & Communication

• You lead from the code. Your team sees it

• Experience mentoring engineers and growing a team

• You can explain technical trade-offs clearly to engineers, clients, and operators

Mindset

• Comfort working without a map in ambiguous environments

• Grit. You don't wait for perfect clarity to make progress

• You're comfortable in a terminal. Not a shell wizard - but you live in one, and it doesn't faze you

• At realfast, everyone codes - just like everyone communicates. You're already building small apps, scripts, or tools to make your own life better. Here you take that all the way

• You already spend hours every day using AI coding assistants - Claude Code, Codex, or the equivalent. If you don't, the pace here will feel alien

• Git is how we collaborate - not just engineers, everyone. You don't need to walk in fluent, but you need to be comfortable learning fast

• Clear, precise prose. You can reason through a problem in writing, explain your thinking to a colleague, and direct an AI agent with the same clarity. The quality of your reasoning on paper directly determines the quality of your output

Backgrounds we'd consider

• Engineering lead or tech lead at a startup or product company who's kept a team of IC makers shipping while still writing code every day — and who's had exposure to design, sales, or client delivery alongside the engineering

• Senior developer who's led a cross-functional delivery team (dev, QA, design, BA) and elevated the craft of everyone on it — not by managing, but by setting the standard with their own work

• Full-stack engineer who's moved into a player-coach role, owns client relationships as well as technical outcomes, and has strong opinions about quality that come from having built and shipped across disciplines

• Engineering manager who never stopped being a developer — someone whose team ships at a high bar because they pair, review, and architect alongside their people, not from a distance

• Lead at a consultancy or agency who's run delivery on ambiguous, high-stakes engagements and brought craft discipline to fast-moving, client-facing work — bonus if they've also done design thinking, pre-sales, or solution architecture

• Other equivalent roles where you've led IC craftspeople, stayed hands-on, and brought breadth beyond pure engineering — design sensibility, commercial awareness, or both

This role is for you if

• AI tools are already part of how you work - you use them for research, drafting, analysis, and can't imagine going back

• You're a polyglot engineer who loves to create working solutions, not just write code

• You want to use AI to drive concrete business outcomes

• You want to turn state-of-the-art research into reliable production systems

• You're obsessed with quality and craft - and you're figuring out how to use AI to elevate both

• You want to lead, mentor, and grow a team of high-calibre engineers

• You enjoy turning client-facing experience into platform improvements that scale

This role is NOT for you if

• You find terminals anxiety-inducing

• You don't code and don't intend to start

• You're not willing to learn git

• You struggle to express your reasoning clearly in writing

• You haven't woven AI tools into how you work

• You need detailed specs, clear boundaries, and extensive guidance to be productive

• You're looking for a purely coding-focused role

• You'd rather specialise narrowly than be dangerous across the stack

• You prefer to manage from a distance rather than lead from the code

Learn more about realfast.ai

• Panel: Razorpay FTX 2026 — Going AI-Native

• Podcast: The Ken Zero Shot — Infosys and Cognizant's Message to Microsoft

• Yourstory: How realfast.ai is helping the IT services industry cut delivery times