Forward Deployed Software Engineer
Posted 2 days ago
The role in short
Design and implement scalable, production-ready software solutions and integrations directly with strategic customers while contributing to the core SaaS platform.
Forward Deployed Software Engineer
About Convr: Convr is an AI underwriting, data, and intelligent document automation workbench built for commercial P&C insurers. We help carriers, MGAs, and brokers accelerate premium growth, improve risk insights, and drive operational efficiency.
Founded in 2016, Convr transforms outdated, manual processes into structured, decision-ready workflows. Our modular platform manages underwriting from submission through quote with a purpose-built AI decisioning context engine – grounded in a commercial insurance ontology – ensuring complete data and smarter decisions, faster, while enabling a frictionless experience and superior performance.
As we scale, we’re building a team shaping the future of commercial underwriting. Join us in modernizing commercial insurance with modern AI.
Role Overview: We are looking for a Forward Deployed Software Engineer (FDSE) who thrives at the intersection of high-level architecture and deep-stack technical execution. This isn't a "one-off" integration role. You are a hybrid of a software engineer, product strategist, and technical consultant. You will embed with our most strategic customers to solve their most complex problems. However, your mission is dual-purpose: while you deliver immediate value to the customer, you are simultaneously acting as a product scout. You will identify patterns in customer needs and translate those into scalable, core features for our SaaS platform.
What You'll be Doing:
- Lead the design and implementation of new features in our core SaaS product. You aren't just building for one user; you are building for the platform.
- Work across the entire stack, from optimizing database queries and API endpoints to crafting intuitive UI/UX.
- Architect production-ready integrations and workflows. You will lead technical workshops with stakeholders to define "future state" solutions.
- Write high-quality, type-safe, and maintainable code in TypeScript, leveraging modern React and Next.js patterns for performance and scalability.
- Prevent "bespoke bloat." Identify universal customer needs and collaborate with product and engineering teams to bake those into the core technical direction.
- Contribute to CI/CD, testing, and performance monitoring to ensure the stability and reliability of your deployments.
- Mentor teammates and establish engineering best practices to level up the entire team’s output.
Who You Are:
- You think in terms of scalability. When you build a solution for one customer, you’re already thinking about how it could benefit the next ten.
- You take 100% ownership of the success of your deployments. You don't wait for a ticket; you find the bottleneck and fix it.
- You are as comfortable whiteboarding a system diagram for a CTO as you are submitting a pull request for a mission-critical API endpoint.
Experience Requirements:
- 7+ years of professional experience in full-stack or frontend development, specifically within SaaS products or startup environments.
- Strong coder with shown proficiency in TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, or similar.
- Hands-on experience with Next.js App Router (server components, layouts, streaming, caching).
- Experience with tRPC or equivalent type-safe API frameworks.
- Experience implementing complex, data-heavy views with Tailwind and component libraries (shadcn/ui, Mantine, etc.). Background in UI/UX design or working closely with designers is highly preferred.
- Ability to design scalable systems and a solid understanding of frontend performance, state management, and accessibility.
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work autonomously, acting as a consultant/partner to our customers while remaining accountable for deliverables.
- Familiarity with insurance and underwriting operations, gained through prior work in insurtech or with carriers, MGAs, or brokers
- Ability and interest to travel up to 20% as needed to customer sites.
Why Join Convr?
- Full Transparency. We believe in open communication with our team and customers.
- We foster a work-life balance. We believe in flexibly because "life" happens!
- Team mentality. We believe in "All Hands-on Deck"! Helping one another regardless of department.
- Everyone knows your name. We are a high growth, dynamic, entrepreneurial company comprised of passionate team members committed to changing the commercial insurance industry. You will not be just a number!
- We believe in challenging yourself to develop your career.
- We are a team of experts who strive to be the best!
Benefits & Compensation
- Remote work opportunities
- Flexible Paid Time Off
- Company Paid Holidays
- Insurance Coverage (medical, dental, vision, short-term & long-term disability, life insurance, and accident coverage)
- 401K
- Paid Parental Leave
Prep for this interview
5 questions likely to come up at Convr, each matched to a line in this posting.
- 1Coding
They wrote: “Strong coder with shown proficiency in TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, Java, C++, or similar.”
Here's a CSV export from a customer. Write a script that cleans it and loads it into our API.
How to answer
Why they ask: Very close to real FDE work. They watch how you handle bad rows and failures.
- Read with a proper CSV parser; check the header first
- Validate each row and collect errors, not crash on the first one
- Send in batches with retries and a clear report at the end
- Write one or two quick tests for the parsing
Tip: Talk through edge cases out loud: encodings, missing fields, duplicates, rate limits.
- 2Travel
They wrote: “Ability and interest to travel up to 20% as needed to customer sites.”
How do you handle being on the road with customers for weeks at a time?
How to answer
Why they ask: Many FDE roles involve regular travel. They check you know what you're signing up for.
- Your past travel or on-site experience
- How you stay productive away from the team
- What travel level works for you, said plainly
Tip: Be honest about what works for you. A mismatch here hurts both sides later.
- 3Discovery and scoping
They wrote: “Architect production-ready integrations and workflows. You will lead technical workshops with stakeholders to define "future state" solutions.”
A customer says “we want AI in our claims process.” What do you ask in the first meeting?
How to answer
Why they ask: Most FDE work starts this vague. They want to hear you find the real problem before you pick a tool.
- Map the current process: who touches a claim, in what order, with which systems
- Find the slowest or most error-prone step and ask what it costs them
- Agree on one measurable goal (for example time per claim, or error rate)
- Ask what data you can access, and who signs off on security
Tip: Ask about the work, not the technology. Who does it today, how long it takes, what a mistake costs, and how they'd know it got better.
- 4Integrations and APIs
They wrote: “Work across the entire stack, from optimizing database queries and API endpoints to crafting intuitive UI/UX.”
Walk me through connecting our product to a customer's internal system that has no documentation.
How to answer
Why they ask: This happens weekly in the job. They want a calm, step-by-step method.
- Find who owns the system and get read access to a test environment
- Watch real traffic or logs to learn the data shapes
- Build a thin adapter with logging around every call
- Agree on how failures get reported, and who fixes what
Tip: Talk about finding the owner of the system first. The code is the easy part.
- 5Ownership and working with customers
They wrote: “You take 100% ownership of the success of your deployments. You don't wait for a ticket; you find the bottleneck and fix it.”
Tell me about something you shipped that broke in production.
How to answer
Why they ask: Everyone has broken production. They want to hear you own it and change something afterwards.
- What broke and who it affected
- How you found out and what you did in the first hour
- The root cause, said plainly
- What you changed so it can't happen the same way again
Tip: Pick a real one with a cost. Spend most of the answer on what you changed.
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