Forward Deployed Engineer

About Tela

Tela builds AI agents and automation systems for leading companies in Brazil.

Partners such as Azul, B3, iFood, Jusbrasil, Grupo Ultra, and Axia work with Tela to automate complex operational workflows, put AI agents into production, and turn operational bottlenecks into systems that keep improving after the first deployment.

Our work sits inside the systems and decisions that companies run on, taking operational work that used to live across teams, queues, spreadsheets, tickets, and internal tools, and turning it into software.

We want Tela to become the reference for enterprise AI in Latin America: embedded teams and a platform that move with the frontier, inside companies that cannot afford to wait for the market to settle.

The Role

We are hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer.

This is a role for builders who want ownership over hard problems inside serious companies.

You will work close to customers, understand how their operations actually run, and build the automations, integrations, and agent workflows that solve painful, high-value problems. When something works for one customer and has the shape of a bigger product, you will help turn it into a verticalized offer we can deploy again.

The work should move the economics of the business: speed, cost, quality, risk, capacity, or all of the above.

This is not a role for sitting between sales and engineering, writing decks, or forwarding requirements. The job is to build.

You will write production code, make architecture calls, work through messy systems, and stay close enough to the customer to know whether what you shipped actually worked.

This is a remote-first role, but you should expect to travel when it matters: workshops, deployments, go-lives, executive meetings, or moments where being in the room changes the outcome.

What You'll Do

• Build AI agent workflows, integrations, and automations for customer use cases
• Work directly with customers to understand their systems, processes, and constraints
• Ship production software, not demos that die after the pilot
• Turn repeated customer patterns into reusable products, components, and playbooks
• Deploy those products into new customers and adapt them to the reality on the ground
• Keep solutions improving after the first go-live, as models, workflows, and customer needs change
• Make trade-offs visible to customers and Tela: scope, architecture, reliability, timeline, and business impact
• Measure impact in the customer's language: speed, cost, quality, risk, and capacity unlocked
• Build internal tools that make delivery faster and less fragile
• Bring field learnings back into product and engineering so the platform improves

What We're Looking For

• 4+ years building production software
• Strong TypeScript skills
• Experience designing systems that are maintainable, scalable, and simple enough to operate
• Ability to understand a business process and translate it into software
• Good judgment on trade-offs between speed, quality, scope, and business value
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical people
• Working proficiency in Portuguese and English
• Willingness to travel for customer work when needed
• A builder mindset: you like creating tools, abstractions, and automations that make the team faster

You'll Do Well Here If You

• Want to own the solution, not just the implementation ticket
• Like being close to customers, but still want most of your week in an editor
• Can ship the simple version first and improve it once the pattern is proven
• Are comfortable with legacy systems, unclear requirements, edge cases, and enterprise constraints
• Enjoy turning one-off work into something repeatable
• Care whether what you built actually works in production
• Want your work to touch large customers, large workflows, and real operational stakes

Nice To Have

• Experience with enterprise customers
• Experience with AI agents, workflow automation, legal tech, financial operations, or enterprise integrations
• Experience building internal platforms, developer tools, or automation frameworks
• Experience turning customer-specific work into reusable products or technical primitives

How We Operate

Tela is a high-agency environment. A few things you should expect from day one:

• Ownership is total: if it is yours, it is yours, outcomes included
• Overdelivery through thinking: push back on work that is not worth doing, and find the better version of it
• Candor runs both ways: we will tell you straight when you are great and when you are not, and we expect the same from you
• Assume intent: when something is breaking, the first question is how to help
• Purpose over momentum: we do not do things just because they are in front of us
• Everyone here is a chef: every role matters to the final result, and the standard is closer to a 3-Michelin-star kitchen than a normal services org

What You'll Get

• Salary in the top 5% of the market for your level
• Equity upside
• Direct access to founders and real influence over the roadmap
• Real ownership over customer deployments and the products that come out of them
• Latest gear: a new MacBook Pro
• PTO when you need it

If you are the kind of builder who wants to own hard problems inside serious companies, we want to talk to you. If you've shipped something relevant, lead with that.