Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)

About the job

Turn customer problems into working solutions.

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you will work directly with customers to understand their problems, design the right technical solution, build the critical pieces, deploy them into real environments, and stay accountable until the solution is reliable and usable.

This is a hands-on role across software, data, AI, infrastructure and customer delivery. You will move between discovery, architecture, coding, deployment and troubleshooting, often within the same project.

You won't be handed perfect requirements. You'll ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, make sensible trade-offs and turn ambiguity into something that can be built and deployed.

What you will own

Discover, Design & Build

• Lead technical discovery to understand customer workflows, constraints, data, security boundaries and success criteria
• Translate customer problems into technical requirements, acceptance criteria and implementation plans
• Design and build production solutions across Python, APIs, backend services, databases, data pipelines and AI-enabled workflows
• Make practical architecture trade-offs based on the customer's environment and operational needs

Deploy & Troubleshoot

• Deploy solutions securely using Docker, CI/CD and cloud infrastructure
• Work with IAM, networking, monitoring and Infrastructure-as-Code
• Troubleshoot real-world production issues and drive them through to resolution
• Build with security, observability, rollback and recovery in mind

Work With Customers

• Run technical discovery sessions, demos, architecture reviews and implementation discussions
• Explain technical decisions and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Challenge assumptions respectfully and surface risks early
• Keep customers informed and build trust through technical credibility and ownership

Own the Final Mile

• Take responsibility beyond "the code is done"
• Harden deployments and resolve remaining issues before handoff
• Produce architecture diagrams, documentation and operator runbooks
• Ensure customers can understand, operate and recover the solution
• Share lessons learned and raise delivery standards across the team

What we're looking for

• 4–6 years of hands-on experience across software engineering, backend/platform engineering, data engineering, cloud/infrastructure, solutions engineering or similar
• No degree requirement. We care about evidence that you can build, reason, communicate and deliver in production
• Strong Python and backend engineering fundamentals, including APIs, authentication, testing, error handling and production debugging
• Practical experience with SQL and data, including databases, data modelling and ingestion/ETL/ELT
• Production experience with Docker and cloud environments
• Familiarity with Kubernetes, IAM/networking, CI/CD, observability and Terraform or comparable IaC is a strong advantage
• Working knowledge of AI/LLM systems, including RAG, tools/agents, evaluations, data access and monitoring
• Strong customer-facing instincts and the ability to lead technical conversations and explain trade-offs clearly
• High ownership with good judgment around security, access controls, change management and operational safety

You don't need to be an expert in every technology listed above. Strong engineering judgment, breadth, curiosity and the ability to learn quickly matter more.

The people who thrive in this role

• Prefer a working deployment over a beautiful slide deck, but can create the slide deck when needed
• Enjoy switching between debugging a technical issue and explaining architecture trade-offs to a customer
• Are comfortable with ambiguity and can turn unclear requirements into assumptions, acceptance criteria and a plan
• Care about the handoff as much as the build
• Stay calm when things break and bring structure to complex problems

What good looks like after 12 months

• You can independently take a customer problem from discovery → architecture → build → deployment → handoff
• You consistently choose simple, reliable designs and can explain your trade-offs
• You can navigate unfamiliar customer environments and resolve complex issues with limited supervision
• You are a trusted technical counterpart to customers and an escalation point internally
• The systems you ship are observable, tested, documented, recoverable and owned

Why join as an FDE?

You'll work on problems where the answer isn't already written down.

You will talk to customers, shape the solution, write the code, deploy it and solve the problems that appear in production.

If you enjoy combining engineering depth with customer impact and want to own problems from "What are we trying to solve?" to "It's working in production", this is the role for you.

Interested applicants are invited to apply through both the Red Alpha website and MyCareersFuture by submitting their application and resume on each platform.

Please note that only applications completed through both platforms will be considered.
Red Alpha Website: https://go.redalphacyber.com/mcf-fde