Forward Deployed Engineer — CollectWise (YC)

Location: New York City, NY (In-person/Hybrid)

Base Salary: $200,000–$300,000

Equity: 0.25%–1%

Visa: Open to Canadian candidates requiring sponsorship

About CollectWise

CollectWise is a Y Combinator-backed AI company automating debt collection, a $35B market in the United States. Their AI agents outperform human collectors by 2X at a fraction of the cost. Team of three, scaled to $1M ARR within months, raised $4M at a $60M valuation, and reached $2M ARR in under a year. Goal: $10M ARR within the next year.

Role Overview

High-ownership, forward-deployed engineering role focused on delivering end-to-end customer implementations. You will operate at the intersection of engineering and operations, building integrations and deploying AI systems directly into production environments.

Core Responsibilities

• Build and maintain custom integrations with client systems
• Configure and deploy AI agents including prompts, workflows, and data pipelines
• Develop backend systems to support client implementations
• Translate customer requirements into clear technical specifications
• Build internal tools to improve deployment speed and repeatability
• Work directly with the founder and customers on implementation

Requirements

• Strong full-stack engineering background in JavaScript or TypeScript
• Experience shipping production products in startup environments or through meaningful independent projects
• Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with customers
• Ability to operate independently and execute quickly in ambiguous environments

Nice to Have

• Experience with Node.js, React, AWS, SQL, and LLM-based systems
• Background from a top university
• Experience in investment banking or consulting transitioning into engineering