Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) / FDE Lead

Role Overview

We seek highly capable Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) and FDE Leads to oversee the entire cycle from identifying customer challenges to delivering commercial, production-ready solutions. This role differs from traditional presales, architecture, product management, or engineering management positions, as it demands hands-on execution, close customer collaboration, and the ability to rapidly translate concepts into working software.

Primary Mission

The FDE's responsibility spans the full lifecycle: Discover → Design → Demo → Proof of Concept (POC) → Close → Build → Deploy → Scale. The goal is to rapidly transition from customer problem to operational product, maintaining ownership throughout.

Key Responsibilities

• Engage directly with customer executives, technical and business teams to comprehend their needs, data environment, and system workflows.
• Convert vague customer requirements into concrete technical solutions, acting as the chief technical liaison throughout the process.
• Work closely with Sales to craft technical strategies that drive opportunity success.
• Personally develop demos and prototypes, including designing solutions, coding applications, integrating AI models, APIs, enterprise systems, and managing deployments in customer or cloud environments.
• Accelerate opportunities by driving technical discussions, resolving objections, contributing to proposals, and validating security, integration, and deployment criteria.
• Own the transition from POC to fully functioning products by architecting, coding, setting engineering standards, establishing operational environments, and addressing testing and security.
• Operate directly within complex customer settings, overcoming challenges such as legacy systems, incomplete APIs, security constraints, and regulatory compliance.
• Identify reusable components developed during customer projects to enhance product platforms and collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to evolve these innovations.

FDE Lead Additional Duties

• Lead and mentor a team of FDEs while remaining hands-on with code and critical deployments.
• Oversee multiple customer projects, allocate resources, review technical architecture, and set standards for development and deployment.
• Guide FDEs on discovery, selling, and product creation while contributing to the product roadmap by integrating key customer-driven innovations.
• Develop and expand the FDE function strategically without sacrificing technical involvement.

Candidate Profile

• Expertise in full-stack development with a record of building complete applications or products end-to-end.
• Strong architecture, system design, cloud-native deployment, API integration, and data engineering skills.
• Proficiency in AI application development, including integrating large language models (LLMs), agentic systems, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and enterprise data sources.
• Ability to rapidly prototype and produce production-level code without compromising quality.
• Strong problem-solving, debugging skills, and experience collaborating directly with enterprise customers.
• Exceptional communication skills to engage both executive and engineering audiences, combined with commercial acumen understanding technical impact on deal closures.
• Comfort working amidst ambiguity and customer pressure to deliver effective solutions promptly.

Unsuitable Candidates

• Those who focus mainly on presentations or architectural diagrams without hands-on building.
• Individuals unable to personally develop proofs of concept or rely solely on others to code.
• Engineers who no longer code or cannot engage customers effectively.
• Applicants requiring detailed upfront specifications before development or unwilling to remain engaged post-POC.
• Those confined to roles like Product Manager, Solution Architect, Presales Engineer, or Engineering Manager without technical execution.

Success Criteria

• Rapid progression from problem identification to live demonstration and deployment.
• High-impact demos, conversion of POCs to commercial agreements, and robust technical contributions.
• Reliability, scalability, and customer adoption of delivered products with measurable business results.
• Creation and reuse of solutions across multiple clients and ability to scale engineering teams effectively.