Forward Deployed Engineer - NYC
HybridNew York City, New York, United States
Job Summary
Spend ~25% of your time onsite with customers across the US to build a ground-truth understanding of operations by shadowing operators and analysts. Rapidly prototype tools and integrations in the field to validate ideas, solve urgent problems, and prove feasibility before handing off to engineering. Troubleshoot and diagnose complex operational or systems issues across varied and sometimes degraded environments while translating field insights into clear technical requirements and integration specs. Lead all technical integration work, including APIs, data pipelines, hardware/software interfaces, and security/compliance-sensitive deployment setups. Represent customer technical realities internally to ensure feasibility and reliability, then inform product and engineering teams with data and frontline feedback. Play a key role in pre-sales by traveling onsite with prospects to demonstrate and prove out the product's value before a deal closes.
Required Qualifications
- 2+ years of software engineering or forward deployed / mission operations experience, with a record of shipping impactful work
- Strong technical fluency and the ability to work closely with engineers—comfortable reading, writing, and debugging code enough to build prototypes
- Low ego, high EQ, and exceptional collaborative instincts—able to build trust inside Realm and with external partners
- Experience working directly with enterprise, industrial, government, defense, or security-critical products
- Strong coding skills, problem-solving ability, and grasp of computer science fundamentals
- Mastery of core development/infrastructure/DevOps tools (Git, Linux)
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional problem solving, influence technical teams, and drive projects from inception to delivery
- Ability to thrive in ambiguous environments—strong prioritization, structured thinking, and comfort balancing long-term vision with immediate needs
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, able to simplify complexity for a wide range of stakeholders
- Strong data instincts—comfortable analyzing data, forming hypotheses, and making data-informed decisions
- Hands-on prototyping and AI-assisted coding skills; comfortable hacking together real solutions quickly to test ideas
- Move fast, can tackle ambiguous problems, and sweat the details
- Based in US - citizen (preferred) or permanent resident
Desired Qualifications
- Experience working on-site with customers in field or operational environments
- Background deploying software to industrial or government settings, with an understanding of constraints like safety, latency, offline ops, or compliance
- Familiarity with mobile or web applications, cloud infrastructure, IoT/industrial systems, or real-time data pipelines
- Experience navigating sensitive or mission-critical customer environments
- Expertise around mining, industrial safety regulations, etc.
Hiring someone like this?
Get your role in front of qualified candidates on Sorce.