Industry-focused artificial intelligence (AI) corporations MakinaRocks said on the 16th that it will hire in the double digits, centering on forward deployed engineers (FDEs).
MakinaRocks has operated FDEs as a strategic organization since 2024. FDEs are personnel dispatched to corporations to support the buildout of customized AI. First defined at Palantir, the organizational concept has, in recent years, become one of the most sought-after roles in the AI era as major corporations such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere have greatly expanded FDE hiring.
Currently, MakinaRocks is hiring research and development talent across the FDE institutional sector, which has more than 10 postings open, as well as backend engineers, infrastructure engineers, and product managers who develop Runway, its core product, an AI operating system (AI OS). It also plans to secure business development and sales talent in Korea and Japan to lay the groundwork for business expansion.
MakinaRocks' FDEs work closely with various teams at customer sites—domain experts, IT organizations, and AI engineers—and are responsible for designing and applying AI systems that consider data structures, operating methods, and security environments.
A MakinaRocks official said, "A recent report published by MIT analyzed that 95% of corporate AI projects still fail to translate into results at the actual field deployment stage," and noted, "The gap between AI technology and industrial sites is the cause, and regardless of technology maturity, the process of landing AI in complex, real-world environments is acting as a major barrier," emphasizing the importance of the FDE role.
MakinaRocks operates a core-time system from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and a work-from-home system. In the hiring process, it also minimized the burden on applicants by introducing interview slots outside working hours (before 9 a.m., after 6 p.m.) so that experienced applicants can participate in the process without using paid leave.
Chief Executive Yoon Seong-ho of MakinaRocks said, "MakinaRocks aims for technologies and organizations that take responsibility for the entire process from the front lines to the factory floor, from AI operating in the real world to the point where it leads to real results," and added, "We hope to see strong interest and applications from battle-tested talent who can understand the constraints and complexities on the front lines of industry and persistently solve them."
MakinaRocks built an AI OS tailored to industrial sites based on its machine learning operations (MLOps) capabilities for implementing a sustainable AI operating framework. It counts leading domestic manufacturing corporations such as Doosan, Samsung, Hyundai, LG, and SK as clients, and it entered the defense business last year. As of last year, contract awards totaled 20.5 billion won, more than doubling from the previous year.