Forward Deployed Engineer

About the Team

The Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) team is a highly specialized, customer-facing software engineering team at Databricks. We work with Databricks most strategic customers to design, build, and productionize first-of-their-kind data and AI solutions. This team is the right fit for you if you love working side-by-side with customers, collaborating with teammates, and pushing your curiosity across the latest trends in data, applications, and AI innovation.

Role Description

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you will embed directly with our most strategic customers to design and deliver custom fullstack applications and solutions on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform and other common software stacks. You will own the architecture, lead design decisions, and implement end-to-end systems spanning data engineering, AI, and application development.

This is a hands-on, customer-facing role for software engineers, developers, and builders who thrive at the intersection of technology and business impact. The ideal candidate combines engineering expertise with adaptability, curiosity, and a passion for solving complex problems that drive measurable outcomes.

The impact you will have:

• Own the Architecture: Lead architecture and design decisions, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, and aligned with both customer needs and Databricks best practices.
• Application Engineering: Design and develop applications spanning backend, frontend, and integrations, bringing data and AI to life for enterprise users leveraging the Databricks platform.
• Solution Delivery: Deliver production-grade systems from data ingestion and transformation through ML/AI model integration to user-facing applications and enablement.
• Customer Immersion: Embed with customer teams, engaging with stakeholders from technical ICs to executives to deeply understand challenges and deliver impact.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Sales, Product, and Field Engineering to ensure a seamless customer journey from pre-sales through post-deployment.
• Reusable Assets & Scale: Contribute accelerators, frameworks, and best practices that scale impact across accounts and influence the Databricks product roadmap.

What we look for:

• Engineering Depth: Strong background in software engineering with experience across backend, frontend, and systems integration. Proficiency in Python, SQL, Java/Scala, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern frameworks.
• Application Delivery: Demonstrated ability to design, build, and deploy production applications that combine data pipelines, ML/AI models, and user-facing interfaces.
• AI/ML Experience: Familiarity working with AI APIs such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini into applications, and leveraging AI code generation tools to accelerate productivity.
• Customer Impact: Proven track record of delivering technical solutions in enterprise environments that drive measurable outcomes.
• Collaboration & Communication: Ability to engage across a broad stakeholder range, from engineers to C-level executives, translating complex concepts into actionable solutions.
• Learning Mindset: Curiosity, adaptability, and eagerness to explore new technologies, domains, and customer challenges.
• Ability and interest to travel up to 50% as needed to client sites.