Sourcing Forward Deployed and AI Engineers for a frontier scientific AI platform built to compress months of research into days
📍 San Francisco · 🎯 Forward Deployed Engineering · AI Engineering · ⚡ Scientific AI Research
ABOUT EDISON SCIENTIFIC
Edison Scientific is an AI-powered research platform spun out of FutureHouse, one of the most respected AI research organisations in the world. Their platform, Kosmos, is built to compress months of scientific R&D into days – giving the world’s leading science organisations access to AI agents that can autonomously run literature reviews, synthesise findings and accelerate the research cycle.
Edison works directly with top-tier research and development institutions globally, operating at the frontier of what AI can do for science.
THE CHALLENGE
Edison Scientific engaged Amigos to support two highly specialised hires: a Forward Deployed Engineer and an AI Engineer. Both roles required a rare combination of deep technical ability and customer-facing confidence – engineers who could sit embedded at client sites, identify the highest-leverage opportunities for AI impact, and ship production-ready solutions in fast cycles. The ideal profile was described as scrappy, technical and autonomous: someone with a background as a technical founder or experience in a fast-paced startup environment.
Forward Deployed Engineering is one of the most difficult profiles to source in the SF market. The role sits at the intersection of senior software engineering, applied AI and technical sales – a combination that eliminates the vast majority of candidates immediately. Strong FDEs are typically already embedded at high-prestige AI companies and are rarely actively looking. The additional requirement of domain comfort in scientific research narrowed the pool further.
WHY AMIGOS?
Edison Scientific engaged us because of our deep network across the SF AI engineering market and our track record sourcing high-agency, technically ambitious engineers for frontier AI companies. Having placed engineers at companies including Axiomatic AI, Labric and previous experience with Plasmidsaurus, we understood both the profile and the pitch required for roles at the cutting edge of applied AI.
OUR APPROACH
We ran a dual-track search combining network activation and targeted passive outreach. Given the unusual profile, we prioritised candidates with prior founding experience or a track record of shipping end-to-end solutions at AI-first companies, rather than filtering primarily by title. Outreach led with the mission and the calibre of the organisations Edison was working with – the FutureHouse origin story and the scientific AI angle were compelling differentiators for the right candidates.
Candidates were screened against a structured scorecard covering technical depth, customer-facing confidence, ownership mindset and comfort with ambiguity. Multiple candidates reached final interview stages across both roles, demonstrating strong alignment with Edison’s technical and cultural bar