What does a Forward Deployed Engineer do at Granica?

Forward Deployed Engineers at Granica are embedded directly with enterprise customers to implement and customize the platform, build integrations, and solve technical problems in real-world client environments. They combine software engineering skills with direct customer interaction, writing production code while also serving as the primary technical point of contact.

What skills are required for this Forward Deployed Engineer role?

The Forward Deployed Engineer role at Granica typically requires strong software engineering skills (Python, TypeScript, SQL), experience with APIs and system integration, comfort with cloud platforms, and the ability to communicate complex technical topics to non-technical stakeholders. Most FDE roles require 3-7 years of engineering experience.

Is this Forward Deployed Engineer position at Granica remote?

Remote availability varies by Granica FDE role. Some positions are fully remote, others require travel to customer sites, and some are hybrid. Check the full job description above for the specific location requirements for this posting.

Granica

Forward Deployed Engineer

$160K - $220K San Francisco Bay Area, CA, US Mid Posted August 06, 2026

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Role Description

Forward Deployed Engineer / Sales Engineer ==============================================

Location: Mountain View, CA — On-site

About Granica -----------------

Granica builds AI infrastructure for enterprises operating massive data environments.

Our platform helps data and engineering teams reduce storage and compute costs, improve performance and reliability, and prepare large datasets for analytics and AI.

Granica’s products include:

Crunch — continuous optimization for enterprise lakehouse data
Myelin — stateful infrastructure for long-running AI agents
Large Tabular Models — foundation models designed for enterprise tables

Together, we are building the infrastructure that enables enterprises to own their data, own the intelligence built on it, and scale both efficiently.

Granica has demonstrated approximately $200K in annualized value per petabyte and verified customer value within weeks.

About the Role ------------------

Granica is hiring a Forward Deployed Engineer / Sales Engineer to lead technical engagements with enterprise customers from initial discovery through evaluation and deployment.

You will work directly with data platform teams, engineers, architects, and technical executives to understand their environments, identify high-value use cases, design proofs of value, and demonstrate measurable technical and economic impact.

This is a hands-on role for someone who can operate across customer engineering, technical sales, product, and engineering.

What You’ll Do ------------------

Lead technical discovery with enterprise data, infrastructure, and AI teams
Understand customer architecture, workloads, constraints, and business priorities
Design and execute proofs of value with clear success criteria
Deploy and configure Granica in complex customer environments
Analyze data-platform performance, reliability, and infrastructure costs
Troubleshoot issues across data, compute, permissions, networking, and integrations
Partner with Account Executives throughout complex enterprise sales cycles
Present technical findings and business value to engineering and executive stakeholders
Translate customer feedback into product and engineering priorities
Build repeatable technical playbooks and evaluation frameworks

What We’re Looking For --------------------------

5+ years in Forward Deployed Engineering, Sales Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Data Engineering, or a similar technical customer-facing role
Deep hands-on expertise with Apache Spark, including debugging, performance tuning, cluster behavior, and production workloads
Strong knowledge of modern data platforms, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure
Experience with lakehouse technologies such as Iceberg, Delta Lake, or comparable systems
Proficiency in SQL and at least one programming language
Experience leading enterprise technical evaluations, proofs of concept, or deployments
Strong troubleshooting and customer communication skills
High ownership and comfort operating in a fast-moving startup
Ability to travel to customer locations when required

Why Join Granica --------------------

Work on foundational infrastructure for enterprise data and AI
Partner directly with customers, company leadership, Product, and Engineering
Help define Granica’s technical GTM motion and Forward Deployed Engineering function
Join an early-stage team solving high-value infrastructure problems at massive scale
Have direct influence on product direction, customer outcomes, and company growth

Compensation & Benefits ============================

Competitive salary, meaningful equity, and performance bonus for top performers
401(k) with company match, comprehensive health coverage, and unlimited PTO
Daily catered meals in our Mountain View office
Support for research, publication, and conference participation

At Granica, you'll help build the next generation of enterprise AI—from exabyte-scale data infrastructure, Large Tabular Models (LTMs), and stateful AI agents. Together, we're creating the infrastructure that enables enterprises to own their data, own the intelligence built on it, and scale both efficiently.

Compensation Range: $160K - $220K

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.