Forward Deployed Engineer - Washington, D.C
HybridWashington, District of Columbia, United States or District of Columbia, United States
Job Summary
Lead onsite deployments and troubleshoot complex operational issues across varied industrial environments while building rapid prototypes to validate field requirements. Shadow operators and frontline teams to translate real-world constraints into technical specs for the engineering team, ensuring seamless data flow and connectivity in mission-critical settings. Decompose ambiguous problems into scoped workstreams and represent customer technical realities internally to drive product and engineering alignment. Support pre-sales efforts by traveling with prospects to demonstrate product value and prove feasibility before deal closure.
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.
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