Founding Forward-Deployed Engineer

Napkin Labs is out to collapse the design-to-manufacturing cycle for the teams behind aircraft, rockets, reactors, and cars. Our AI agents do real engineering work across the CAD, simulation, PLM, and ERP tools engineers already use, and we’re going into production with our first paying customers.

We’re a team of AI engineers and rocket scientists from Stanford and NASA.

You’re the bridge between our customers’ engineering teams and our software team. You’ll report directly to our CTO and untangle the mess of enterprise engineering workflows.

You own the fast first version: find the problem, prototype the fix, and prove it works. Then our software team builds it into the platform.

As a Forward-Deployed Engineer, you are the critical bridge between our engineering/manufacturing customers and our software team. You will report directly to the CTO, working hands-on with customers and untangling the mess of enterprise engineering workflows. You will own the rapid prototyping of software solutions before handing off to our software team for full-stack prototype realization.

In this role, you will:

• Work closely with client engineering teams to deeply understand their technical workflows, identify their biggest pain points, and build the business case for automation
• Use AI tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, etc.) to quickly build and test automated software solutions for engineering workflows
• Translate customer conversations into concrete product needs, passing clear requirements back to the software team to integrate into our broader product
• Act as the voice of the customer, meaningfully shaping our roadmap and prioritizing the next automations and integrations we develop for

This role may involve access to export-controlled technical data. Candidates must qualify as a “U.S. person” under 22 CFR § 120.62, including U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and certain other protected individuals.

You are essentially a recovering hardware engineer who is ready to build software, or a software engineer with experience developing for hardware/manufacturing. You have lived the pain of the engineering lifecycle and feel the imperative to fix it:

• You have a strong foundation in mechanical, manufacturing, or aerospace engineering. You speak the language and understand the engineering and processes behind building physical products.
• You have worked directly in mechanical engineering software (such as CAD, simulation, PLM).
• You already spend your time scripting your own engineering work away. You love hardware, but you love solving hardware problems with software even more.
• You are fluent in the modern AI development stack, where AI tools are your daily drivers for building fast.
• You are a first-principles thinker and quick learner who can break legacy engineering processes down to their fundamental intent.
• You enjoy talking to customers and iterating on their problems to make their day instantly better.

• Tool scripting. NX Open, the SOLIDWORKS API, PyAnsys, or other ways of automating CAD and simulation.
• Enterprise systems. PLM or ERP experience (think Teamcenter or SAP).
• Industry. Aerospace, defense, automotive, or advanced manufacturing.
• Customer-facing engineering. Applications engineering, consulting, or field work.

• You will be defining a new software category at the boundary of AI and the physical world.
• You will be one of the first hires at a well-funded, fast-moving startup and can define your own role trajectory, with meaningful influence over the product and engineering culture.
• You will have massive impact within the company and in the broader engineering space, shaping our product roadmap and building the tools that help build the next generation of rockets and hardware faster.
• It’s incredibly satisfying to automate away the same engineering headaches you used to hate (and have industry-name companies excited about it).

Apply → email careers@napkinlabs.com