Forward Deployed Engineer
Role Description
About the Role
We’re hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer to be our hands and eyes onsite at a key customer in Normal, IL. You’ll be responsible for our fleet of data collection devices — diagnosing and repairing devices, provisioning new hardware, troubleshooting networking, and running the diagnostic workflows that keep the system healthy. This role will start with critical robot data collection devices and then transition into robot deployment support.
This is a forward-deployed role with strong support from HQ. You won’t be alone: our engineering team is one Slack message away, and you’ll work closely with them to escalate complex issues, ship fixes back into the product, and bring the voice of the customer into our roadmap. The ideal candidate is technically curious, calm under pressure, and energized by being the person on the ground who makes things work.
Responsibilities
- Provision new hardware by installing and configuring Linux, deploying our software stack, and validating device health before bringing units into production.
- Run diagnostic scripts, collect and interpret system logs, and execute command-line workflows to identify root causes of device or network issues.
- Configure and troubleshoot local networking (IP, DHCP, DNS, VLANs, Wi-Fi/Ethernet) to ensure reliable device connectivity to our backend.
- Serve as the customer’s primary technical point of contact onsite, coordinating closely with HQ engineering and support to resolve issues and feed field learnings back into the product.
Qualifications
- Hands-on hardware and software troubleshooting experience, ideally with microcomputers, embedded devices, cameras, or similar single-board computers.
- Comfort with Linux system administration: installing distributions, package management, systemd services, file permissions, and basic shell navigation.
- Working knowledge of Bash (and ideally Python) for reading and running simple diagnostic scripts and automating routine tasks.
- Solid networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, subnets, DNS, DHCP, basic firewall rules, and fluency with tools like ping, traceroute, tcpdump, and ssh.
- Strong customer-facing communication skills and the self-direction to operate independently onsite while staying tightly coordinated with a remote HQ team.
- Prior experience in a field service, forward deployed, or solutions engineering role is a plus.
- Familiarity with DevOps and software infrastructure tools such as Docker, Ansible, Portainer, etc. is a plus.
- Familiarity with computer vision systems, IP cameras, or industrial IoT deployments is a plus.
- Experience with Git, basic scripting in Python, or remote device management tools is a plus.
About Forward Deployed Engineering
Forward Deployed Engineers are embedded directly with customers to build custom solutions, integrate products into existing infrastructure, and bridge the gap between product engineering and customer success. The role combines deep technical skills with the ability to operate in client environments and translate business requirements into working software.
Originally pioneered by Palantir, the FDE model has spread across AI, enterprise SaaS, and cloud infrastructure companies. FDEs write production code, architect integrations, train customer teams, and feed product insights back to the core engineering organization. At companies like OpenAI, Salesforce, and Databricks, FDE teams are treated as elite engineering units that can ship custom solutions in days rather than quarters.
Typical FDE stack: Python, TypeScript, SQL, REST/GraphQL APIs, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure), and increasingly LLM APIs and AI orchestration frameworks. Strong communication and the ability to context-switch between technical and business conversations are as important as coding ability.
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