Forward Deployed Software Engineer
Backgrounder: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/forward-deployed-engineers
Job Description
SUMMARY:
As our business continues to grow, we are expanding our capabilities in harnessing advancements in AI-powered tools and practices in the development of software. We seek a highly motivated problem solver who thrives in addressing complex challenges with innovative solutions. FDEs responsibilities look similar to those of a startup CTO: you’ll work in small teams and own end-to-end execution of high-stakes projects. You'll be joining a small, focused, and fast paced team that plays a critical role within a broader organization of excellence. If you're eager to be at the forefront of innovation and best practices in software development, and ready for impactful work, we want to hear from you.
This is a fully remote position. While many of us are physically located in or around Seattle (where it’s nice to grab a coffee from time to time), please be physically located in the United States.
Essential Functions & Responsibilities
- Drive tangible outcomes through hands-on implementation
- Build transformative AI solutions
- Engineer bespoke agentic AI solutions
- Own the entire data configuration & integration lifecycle
- Proactively remove technical blockers
- Drive AI innovation
- Become a trusted strategic partner for our client
- Conduct deep-dive technical debugging and root cause analysis
- Lead rapid prototyping and iteration
- Implement and enforce best practices
Education & Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- Minimum of 10 years’ experience in software engineering in complex environments, at scale.
- Minimum of 10 years’ cloud experience (AWS, GCP or Azure)
- Experience building complex distributed systems and API microservices at scale.
- Familiarity with the latest developments in AI, regularly working with large language models (LLMs)
- 18 months production experience leveraging agentic AI and code assist tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT, or Copilot to enhance development speed and efficiency
- You’ve worked in a balance of start up and fast-moving enterprise class engineering environments, and are at home considering, adapting or applying the best of both worlds in either environment
- Experience in customer facing roles, such as solutions architect, sales engineer, integration engineer
- Expert level Python, Golang, Java, SQL
- Proven ability to translate business requirements into effective, AI powered data-driven solutions
- Commitment to rigorous testing, experimentation, and data-driven decision-making.
- Ability to work both independently and within a small, focused team environment.
- Must be self-directed, analytical, adept to problem solving, and have a strong attention to detail.
- Demonstrated ability to produce quality products under tight time constraints.