How to apply for Senior Forward Deployed Engineer

About Afresh Technologies

Afresh builds an AI platform for grocery, focused on fresh food and high-volatility environments. Customers include Albertsons, Meijer, and Wakefern. The platform prevented over 200 million pounds of food waste last year and is live in over 10% of the U.S. grocery market.

About the role

This is a hybrid role: you spend dedicated time embedded with an enterprise grocery customer, integrating into their data and shipping AI systems, and dedicated time building reusable platform tooling from what you learn in the field. The work directly scales Afresh's AI across the fresh food supply chain.

A typical day

You might spend a morning embedded with a grocery customer, working on data integration for their fresh inventory. In the afternoon, you could be back on the platform team, turning that integration work into a reusable tool for other deployments. The split between field and platform time is core to the role.

Who Afresh Technologies is looking for

• Has experience deploying software or AI systems directly into enterprise customer environments, including data integration work.
• Can move between field work and platform engineering, and is willing to turn customer-specific solutions into reusable tools.
• Comfortable working with high-volatility data environments, like fresh food supply chains where demand and inventory change quickly.
• Has shipped production systems at scale and can work remotely with enterprise customers in the U.S.

Tips for this application

• Highlight any experience you have integrating into customer data systems, especially in retail, grocery, or supply chain.
• Show examples where you built platform tooling based on what you learned from a customer deployment.
• Mention specific work with AI or ML systems in production, not just prototypes.
• If you have experience with fresh food, perishables, or high-volatility inventory, call it out explicitly.
• Reference Afresh's customers (Albertsons, Meijer, Wakefern) or the 200 million pounds of food waste prevented to show you understand their scale.

What to cover in your cover letter

Explain why you want a role that splits time between field deployment and platform building. Describe a time you turned a customer-specific fix into a reusable tool. Show familiarity with Afresh's work in fresh food and grocery AI. Connect your experience to the goal of reducing food waste at enterprise scale.

Research before applying

• Read about Afresh's customers: Albertsons, Meijer, and Wakefern. Understand what fresh food challenges they face.
• Look into the 200 million pounds of food waste Afresh prevented last year and how that ties to their AI platform.
• Understand what 'forward deployed engineer' means in practice at Afresh by reviewing their job description carefully.
• Check Afresh's 70% revenue growth in 2025 and their 6 enterprise-grade solutions to understand their scale.

Likely interview topics

Based on the job description, expect questions about:

• How you would approach integrating Afresh's AI into a grocery customer's existing data systems.
• A time you built platform tooling after learning from a customer deployment.
• How you handle high-volatility data environments, like fresh food demand and inventory.
• Your experience with AI or ML systems in production at enterprise scale.
• How you balance time between field work and platform engineering.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Applying without showing any experience in customer-facing deployment or data integration.
• Focusing only on platform engineering and ignoring the field deployment part of the role.
• Using generic language about AI without connecting it to grocery, fresh food, or supply chain specifics.