Closure — Forward Deployed Engineer

Type: Full-time | On-site (in-hub) | New York City, NY · San Francisco, CA Compensation: $115,000–$175,000 + founding-hire equity (competitive) Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: None available Reports to: Not specified on role page (works alongside Tina — existing FDE, Judith — technical CS, and engineering; interviews with Aaron and Gilad)

About Closure

Closure helps law enforcement search evidence and solve crime — police and prosecutors across the US use it to accelerate investigations into homicides, cold cases, and other major offenses by cutting through digital evidence overload. The founding team includes ex-Palantir and ex-IDF engineers who have built national-scale systems before.

Roughly 10 active customer deployments today, with a path to 25–40 over the next 9 months. Primary customer geography is California and Alaska, expanding through other Western states and the Southeast (Florida heating up).

Founded: 2025 | Team size: 1–10 | Total funding: Not disclosed (Seed) Industry: Public safety / law enforcement AI · legal & gov-tech Website: closure-intel.com Office: NYC (primary) · SF Bay Area (secondary)

Why Candidates Should Join

• Founding-hire ownership: Meaningful founding-hire level equity, 4-year vest, 1-year cliff.
• End-to-end scope: Own the customer relationship from pilot through first renewal and expansion — not a hand-off role.
• Serious mission and pedigree: Real public-safety impact (homicides, cold cases) built by ex-Palantir / ex-IDF engineers who have shipped national-scale systems.
• Real traction: ~10 live deployments today, scaling to 25–40 within 9 months.

Intake Call Summary

• Not present on the role page.

The Role

Own customer outcomes end-to-end as a Forward Deployed Engineer: scope pilots, ingest messy evidentiary data, configure the product per-agency, write scripts and integrations when the product doesn't quite fit, and sit with detectives and prosecutors while they work cases — feeding learnings straight into the roadmap.

Typical engagement is a 2–6 week pilot annual contract in-agency expansion. Time split is roughly 60% customer-facing (calls, onsite, async), 30% building/scripting/configuring, 10% internal (product feedback, playbooks, hiring loops). This is not a sales-engineering seat — you live inside customer codebases, dig through real evidence data, and write the scripts that make the product work per agency.

What You'll Be Doing

• Scope pilots with new customer agencies and translate operational goals into technical deployment plans
• Ingest messy evidentiary data per customer (Cellebrite/GrayKey extractions, CDRs, ALPRs, body cam, jail call audio, PDFs, social media)
• Configure the product per-agency and write scripts or integrations when it doesn't quite fit
• Sit with detectives, prosecutors, and analysts while they work, translating workflow gaps into product improvements
• Own customer relationships from pilot through first renewal and expansion
• Feed learnings directly into the product roadmap
• Pair with Tina (existing FDE), Judith (technical CS), and engineering

Tech stack: Python and/or TypeScript · APIs · data pipelines

Requirements

• Strong engineer: Python and/or TypeScript, APIs, data pipelines
• Customer-facing comfort (sheriff bullpen, DA office)
• Owner mindset, bias to action, ambiguity tolerance
• Mission-aligned with public safety
• FBI background check + CJIS clearance required

Green Flags

• Prior FDE, solutions engineering, or implementation engineering at a company selling into non-tech-native customers. Palantir FDE is the canonical archetype.
• Exposure to law enforcement, prosecution, intelligence, defense, or e-discovery/forensics through past work, military background, or family connection.
• Engineering depth: shipped Python or TypeScript code that processed real data pipelines in production, can ship small tools without an engineering handoff.
• Demonstrated customer-facing track record. Comfortable on agency floors, with detectives or prosecutors, not just on Zoom calls.
• Mission-aligned public safety stance. Treats law enforcement customers as the users they are, not as an ethically loaded case study.

Red Flags

• Frames public safety customers as ethically suspect or as an "interesting case study." Hard exclude per direct guidance.
• Career consultant who has never owned a shipped product outcome
• Sales engineer who treats deployment as a demo and will not dig into the data.
• Pure backend engineer who has never sat across from a customer.
• Job hoppers under 18 months tenure without a clear narrative.

Details

• Location: New York City, NY · San Francisco, CA
• Work policy: In-hub (NYC or SF Bay Area); exceptional out-of-hub candidates considered with higher travel; 25–75% travel
• Compensation: $115,000–$175,000 + founding-hire equity
• Visa sponsorship: None available
• Employment type: Full-time

Screening Questions

• None specified on the role page.

Interview Process

Stage 1 — Pending Approval — Candidates awaiting initial approval. Stage 2 — Intro with Aaron — Intro conversation. Stage 3 — 60-min Technical and Scenario with Gilad — Technical + scenario interview. Stage 4 — Take-Home or Live Exercise — Practical exercise. Stage 5 — 60-min Customer Simulation — Simulated customer interaction. Stage 6 — Onsite in NYC or SF — In-person round. Stage 7 — Reference Calls — 2–5 references, including at least 2 people they've deployed alongside. Stage 8 — Offer Extended Stage 9 — Candidate Hired — Candidate accepts and starts.

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

Not present as a dedicated section on the role page. Reference companies named in Closure's outreach: Palantir, Anduril, Magnet Forensics (or comparable FDE / solutions / implementation orgs selling into non-tech-native customers).