Role Description
Forward Deployed Engineer
Location: New York, NY (Hybrid)
Pay: $160k - $190k Base + Bonus
No Sponsorship Offered
About the Role
An industry-leading consulting and technology transformation organisation is expanding its Data, AI, and Engineering capability due to significant investment in AI, Generative AI, and enterprise transformation initiatives.
This opportunity sits within a growing Forward Deployed Engineering team that works directly with enterprise clients to solve complex business challenges through technology. This is an ideal opportunity for professionals who enjoy working directly with customers, navigating ambiguity, and building scalable solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.
Responsibilities
- Partner directly with client stakeholders to understand business challenges and translate requirements into technical solutions
- Design, build and maintain data pipelines, workflows and production-ready applications
- Deliver AI, analytics and data-driven solutions that improve business performance
- Configure, customise and deploy technology solutions within enterprise environments
- Collaborate with engineers, product teams and business users throughout the delivery lifecycle
- Drive user adoption, training and change management activities to maximise solution value
- Mentor junior team members and contribute to best practices across projects
Must-Have Qualifications
- Experience in Data Engineering, Software Engineering, AI, Analytics or related technical disciplines
- Proven track record delivering production-ready solutions within enterprise environments
- Strong client-facing and stakeholder management experience
- Experience gathering requirements and translating business needs into technical solutions
- Demonstrated structured problem-solving skills with the ability to navigate ambiguous challenges
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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