Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
About The Position
The Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) bridges hands-on software development with customer technical strategy. The role partners with enterprise customers to architect, deploy, debug, and optimize Workday AI agents and developer platform solutions in live customer environments. Working across the deployment lifecycle, the FDE collaborates with AI Deployment Architects, Product Managers, and Workday Services leads to drive customer success and reduce implementation friction by feeding field-tested solutions back into the core platform. The FDE organization operates across Product, Engineering, and customer execution for Agent Factory, Sana, Products, and the Developer Platform. FDEs work within active customer engagements to address technical friction, complex configurations, unstructured tenant data, and edge-case enterprise workflows. They also relay field insights, recurring customer friction, and configuration patterns to Product and Engineering so these can become scalable, out-of-the-box product capabilities. The role includes travel of up to 20% to customer sites as needed. Workday’s Flex Work approach calls for at least half of each quarter spent in the office or in the field with customers, prospects, and partners, depending on role. The position is based primarily in Pleasanton, California, with additional U.S. locations listed for pay purposes.
Requirements
- At least 7 years of experience in Forward Deployed Engineering, Solutions Engineering, Technical Consulting, or Software Development.
- Hands-on coding and debugging skills in Python, Java, or a similar language.
- Solid understanding of REST APIs, object-oriented design, system architecture, and integration patterns.
- Proven experience working directly with enterprise clients on complex software deployments, live data troubleshooting, and custom workflow integration.
- Willingness and ability to travel up to 20% to customer sites as needed.
- Ability to identify generalizable product requirements from bespoke customer issues.
- Exceptional verbal and written technical communication skills, including translating complex technical challenges for non-technical leadership.
- Ability to thrive in fast-paced environments with evolving requirements across Product, Engineering, and Services teams.
- Collaborative, low-ego approach and ability to work within multidisciplinary account and delivery pods.
Nice To Haves
- Applied experience with LLM-powered or agentic AI systems, such as prompt or context engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluations, or agent orchestration frameworks.
- Working understanding of how model behavior appears as product and customer-facing issues in the field.
Responsibilities
- Deploy, configure, and debug AI agents and integrations in live enterprise tenant environments for complex customer workflows and real-world data.
- Lead technical discovery sessions with customer stakeholders and translate business requirements into product configurations, proofs of concept, and integration specifications.
- Capture field telemetry, edge-case failures, and customer friction points to inform the product roadmap and engineering backlog.
- Identify recurring deployment challenges and turn custom fixes into standardized, automated, out-of-the-box product capabilities.
- Partner with Workday Services leads, AI Deployment Architects, and Account Teams to support seamless project delivery while maintaining focus on core product strength.
- Guide customer engagements through milestones from kickoff to graduation, enabling self-sustaining customer ownership within standard six-month deployment cycles.
Benefits
- May be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission or bonus.
- May be eligible for annual refresh stock grants.
- Workday provides a comprehensive benefits package; specific benefits are not detailed in the posting.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
