Technical Pre-Sales Prototyper / Forward Deployed Engineer

Here’s a summary of the role:    

We are looking for a rare hybrid talent — someone who can hack together end-to-end prototypes at speed while also standing confidently in front of a customer’s executive team. This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product, and business development. You will be one of the first technical faces customers meet, building semi-deployable prototypes, testing product-market fit in the wild, and representing us in high-stakes conversations with senior stakeholders.  

If you’re an entrepreneurial engineer who thrives in ambiguity, loves building quickly, and wants to see the immediate impact of your work with customers, this role is for you.  

 

Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll do (not all of it, just the important stuff): 

• Rapidly design, build, and deliver end-to-end prototypes, demos, and proofs-of-concept that help prospects and partners experience the art of the possible.  

• Partner with sales and business development teams to identify customer needs, run discovery sessions, and tailor prototypes to demonstrate value.  

• Represent the company independently in executive-level meetings (SVP/C-level), confidently articulating both technical and business value.  

• Act as a forward-deployed engineer — embedded in customer/partner environments, surfacing insights, validating opportunities, and feeding learnings back into the product roadmap.  

• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, engineering, and marketing to shape product direction and positioning based on real-world engagements.  

• Provide technical guidance during early partnership discussions, including APIs, integrations, cloud deployments, and lightweight AI/LLM-driven applications.  

• Help establish repeatable frameworks, toolkits, and playbooks for scaling pre-sales prototyping efforts.  

 

These are the essentials you’ll need to get an interview: 

• 3-5+ years of relevant, post-college work experience.  

• Strong technical hacking and prototyping ability — shown proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, C++, TypeScript/JavaScript, or similar. Can independently build functional, semi-deployable solutions across modern stacks (Python/Node, APIs, data pipelines, cloud environments, front-end frameworks, etc.).  

• Comfort working with AI/LLM-based tools, APIs, and modern developer ecosystems.  

• Excellent customer-facing skills: discovery, prospecting, business development, and partnership alignment.  

• Exceptional executive presence: confident, articulate, and able to hold your own with senior executives.  

• Proven ability to operate independently in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.  

• Strong communication skills: able to translate technical complexity into business value.  

• Ability and interest to travel up to 25%, as needed to client sites, but flexible based on personal preferences.  

 

It would be great if you had these to, but we’ll support you if you don’t: 

• Experience in technical pre-sales, forward-deployment, or field engineering roles.  

• Background in B2B SaaS, enterprise software, or early-stage startups.  

• Comfort balancing short-term prototyping with longer-term scalability considerations.  

• Strong storytelling skills and the ability to craft narratives around prototypes and demos.  

 

Why Join Us?  

• Shape the earliest moments of our customer and partner relationships.  

• Have direct influence on product strategy by bringing back unfiltered customer insights.  

• Work on cutting-edge technologies while owning high-visibility projects.  

• Join a team that values entrepreneurial thinking, speed, and impact.  

This is a high-trust, high-impact role. You’ll be dropped into mission-critical situations, given the freedom to build, and trusted to represent the company at the highest levels. 

U.S pay range $130,000—$150,000 USD

About Us

Diligent is the AI leader in governance, risk and compliance (GRC) SaaS solutions, helping more than 1 million users and 700,000 board members to clarify risk and elevate governance. The Diligent One Platform gives practitioners, the C-Suite and the board a consolidated view of their entire GRC practice so they can more effectively manage risk, build greater resilience and make better decisions, faster. 

At Diligent, we're building the future with people who think boldly and move fast.  Whether you're designing systems that leverage large language models or part of a team reimaging workflows with AI, you'll help us unlock entirely new ways of working and thinking.  Curiosity is in our DNA, we look for individuals willing to ask the big questions and experiment fearlessly - those who embrace change not as a challenge, but as an opportunity.  The future belongs to those who keep learning, and we are building it together.  At Diligent, you’re not just building the future - you’re an agent of positive change, joining a global community on a mission to make an impact.

Learn more at diligent.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook

 

What Diligent Offers You 

• Creativity is ingrained in our culture. We are innovative collaborators by nature. We thrive in exploring how things can be differently both in our internal processes and to help our clients
• We care about our people. Diligent offers a flexible work environment, global days of service, comprehensive health benefits, meeting free days, generous time off policy and wellness programs to name a few
• We have teams all over the world. We may be headquartered in New York City, but we have office hubs in Washington D.C., Vancouver, London, Galway, Budapest, Munich, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Sydney.
• Diversity is important to us. Growing, maintaining and promoting a diverse team is a top priority for us. We foster and encourage diversity through our Employee Resource Groups and provide access to resources and education to support the education of our team, facilitate dialogue, and foster understanding.

Diligent created the modern governance movement. Our world-changing idea is to empower leaders with the technology, insights and connections they need to drive greater impact and accountability – to lead with purpose. Our employees are passionate, smart, and creative people who not only want to help build the software company of the future, but who want to make the world a more sustainable, equitable and better place. 

Headquartered in New York, Diligent has offices in Washington D.C.,  London, Galway, Budapest, Vancouver, Bengaluru, Munich, Singapore and Sydney.   To foster strong collaboration and connection, this role will follow a hybrid work model. If you are within a commuting distance to one of our Diligent office locations, you will be expected to work onsite at least 50% of the time. We believe that in-person engagement helps drive innovation, teamwork, and a strong sense of community.

 

We are a drug free workplace. Diligent is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, physical disability, mental disability, age, military status, protected veteran status, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer related or HIV/AIDS related), genetic information, or sexual orientation in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. See also Diligent's EEO Policy and Know Your Rights. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at recruitment@diligent.com.

To all recruitment agencies: Diligent does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Diligent employees or any other organization location. Diligent is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.