Forward Deployed Agent Engineer
At a glance
Mid-level Solutions & Sales Engineering role at Cogent Security. San Francisco · full-time · $100,000–$300,000 base.
growthroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Build AI agents that analyze large datasets, connect with security tools and carry out complex workflows
- Lead customer deployments from data intake and transformation through configuration, workflow design and production launch
- Test and bring text, voice and multimodal models into production systems
- Work with customer security teams to fit agents to their tools, processes and data
- Turn patterns across customer work into platform changes, while debugging reliability and performance issues
What you bring
- At least two years of professional software engineering experience, preferably in fast-moving or customer-facing work
- You can build in Python and TypeScript, including asynchronous systems and dependable data integrations
- You can trace difficult faults across multiple system layers and explain technical issues to different audiences
- You take work from start to finish in ambiguous situations, keeping customer results ahead of output
Who this fits
This mid-level role suits an engineer who wants hands-on customer work, end-to-end delivery and production problem-solving. It is based in San Francisco and hybrid. The stated annual base salary range is $100,000 to $300,000.
From the employer
About Cogent Security
Cogent is an Applied AI Lab building the next generation of AI agents for cybersecurity. AI has fundamentally changed how attacks happen, allowing malicious actors to operate at unprecedented speed and scale. Our AI Taskforce assesses petabytes of enterprise data to remediate these issues before critical breaches occur.
To stay at the cutting edge, we blend frontier research with real-world execution. Alongside our core product work, Cogent Research serves as our applied AI lab - providing the research needed to make agentic security workflows a reality.
Since coming out of stealth, Cogent has experienced rapid growth. We partner with Fortune 500 companies to secure some of the most complex production environments in the world. We're backed by Greylock and our team includes people from:
Top universities like Stanford, Berkeley, Penn, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and Waterloo
High-growth companies like Scale AI, Databricks, Stripe, Tesla, and Coinbase
Cybersecurity leaders from Wiz, Abnormal AI, and Zscaler
Research labs like DeepMind and SAIL
About the Role
We're hiring a Forward Deployed Agent Engineer to design, build, and deploy mission-critical AI agents that operate in complex customer environments and drive measurable security outcomes. This is a highly cross-functional, forward-deployed role - you'll work directly with customers to understand their needs, adapt our platform to their environment, and continuously iterate on solutions that scale to millions of real-world events.
You'll own projects end-to-end: from initial implementation and data onboarding, to deploying in production, to integrating feedback into our core agent platform. Your work will directly shape how our agents detect threats, triage incidents, and automate security workflows for Fortune 500 organizations.
This role is built for engineers who thrive in high-impact environments, love solving hard technical problems, and want to see the tangible results of their work in the field.
What You'll Do
Design & Deploy AI Agents - build security-focused AI agents that reason over large datasets, interact with security systems, and handle complex real-world workflows
Own Implementations End-to-End - lead technical delivery for new and existing customers, from data ingestion and transformation pipelines to configuration, workflow design, and feature extension
Integrate the Latest Models at Scale - experiment with, evaluate, and integrate the latest text, voice, and multi-modal models into production environments
Adapt to Diverse Environments - work directly with customer security teams to integrate our agents with their tools, processes, and data sources
Drive Platform Evolution - identify cross-customer trends and translate field insights into platform improvements and new capabilities
Solve Complex Technical Problems - debug deep in the stack, investigate edge cases, and ensure our agents meet enterprise-grade reliability and performance standards
What We're Looking For
2+ years of professional software engineering experience, ideally in high-velocity or customer-facing environments
Proficiency in Python and TypeScript, with strong skills in asynchronous programming and building robust data integrations
Strong debugging and systems thinking abilities; comfortable tracing issues across multiple layers of a stack
Clear communication skills, with the ability to translate between technical and non-technical contexts
Thrive in ambiguity, take ownership end-to-end, and prioritize customer outcomes over output
Nice to Have
Experience with multi-modal AI models, enterprise SaaS, security operations, or behavioral analytics
Familiarity with large-scale data ingestion, transformation pipelines, and real-time processing
For California Based Applicants
The standard base salary range for this position is $100,000 - $300,000 annually. Compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for variable compensation, equity, and benefits.
We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse company. We do not discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, civil or family status, age, disability, or race.