Forward Deployed Engineer (US) at Cekura | Y Combinator

Teams use Cekura to test, monitor, debug, and improve AI agents across voice, chat, SMS, phone, and web. We help them catch failures in latency, barge-in, tool calls, hallucinations, instruction-following, regressions, and production workflows.

We’re YC F24, growing fast, backed by top investors, and working with teams deploying AI agents in the real world.

About the Role

We’re hiring a **Forward Deployed Engineer** to work directly with technical customers and help them get value from Cekura.

You’ll sit at the intersection of customers, product, engineering, and GTM. Your job is to deeply understand how customers build agents, help them create self-improving loops with Cekura, and turn those learnings into better product and better process.

What You’ll Do

**Embed deeply with customers** Work with customers to understand their agent workflows, onboard them well, and help them build continuous loops across testing, monitoring, debugging, and improvement.

**Automate product insights** Build systems and workflows that show how customers use Cekura, where they get value, where they get stuck, and where we should help next.

**Drive product direction** Turn customer learnings into clear product feedback, RFCs, and roadmap input. Help us decide what to build next.

**Build the FDE org** Create the playbooks, processes, and standards for how FDE works at Cekura.

About You

- You care deeply about customers and measurable outcomes.

- You are technical enough to read API docs, inspect payloads, debug logs, and reason about systems.

- You’re comfortable with APIs, webhooks, basic SQL, and Python or JavaScript.

- You communicate clearly with both engineers and executives.

- You like ambiguity, move fast, and create structure from scratch.

- You use data to understand adoption, risk, value, and impact.

- Bonus points - if you are an ex-founder or aspire to be a founder in the future.

Minimum Qualifications

- 2+ years in a technical role at a dev-tool, infra, SaaS, or AI company.

- Experience working with APIs, logs, dashboards, and customer debugging.

- Comfort with basic SQL and one of Python or JavaScript.

- Strong written and verbal communication.

Nice to Have

- Early or founding FDE experience

- Experience with LLMs, AI agents, voice AI, observability, testing, or evals.

- Familiarity with tools like Twilio, SIP, WebRTC, Vapi, Retell, LiveKit, or Pipecat.

- Experience working directly with technical founders or engineering teams.

This Might Not Be for You If

- You need rigid processes or heavy structure.

- You prefer pure relationship management without technical depth.

- You don’t enjoy messy customer debugging.

- You want a narrow, clearly defined role.

- You don’t want to work in-person in SF

Why Cekura

- Build the foundation of the FDE org.

- Work directly with founders and a highly technical team.

- Help define infrastructure for self-improving AI agents.

- Meaningful equity, competitive compensation, and fast growth.

- Medical, dental, vision, team lunches, and dinners.

About Cekura

Cekura is a Y Combinator–backed startup redefining AI voice agent reliability. Founded by IIT Bombay alumni with research credentials from ETH Zurich and proven success in high-stakes trading, our team built Cekura to solve the cumbersome, error-prone nature of manual voice agent testing.

We automate the testing and observability of AI voice agents by simulating thousands of realistic, real-world conversational scenarios—from ordering food and booking appointments to conducting interviews. Our platform leverages custom and AI-generated datasets, detailed workflows, and dynamic persona simulations to uncover edge cases and deliver actionable insights. Real-time monitoring, comprehensive logs, and instant alerting ensure that every call is optimized and production-ready.

In a market rapidly expanding with thousands of voice agents, Cekura stands out by guaranteeing dependable performance, reducing time-to-market, and minimizing costly production errors. We empower teams to demonstrate reliability before deployment, making it easier to build trust with clients and users.

Join us in shaping the future of voice technology. Learn more at cekura.ai.

![Image 6: Cekura](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/cekura-ai)

Cekura

Founded:2024

Batch:F24

Team Size:15

Status:Active

Location:San Francisco

[](https://www.cekura.ai/)[](https://www.linkedin.com/company/104795138)![Image 7: X (Twitter) logo](https://x.com/cekuraAi)

Founders

![Image 8: Tarush Agarwal](https://www.ycombinator.com/founders/795623-tarush-agarwal)

Tarush Agarwal