Forward Deployed Software Engineer

Encord•San Francisco, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Encord is seeking an exceptional Forward Deployed Software Engineer (FDSE) to join their engineering team. This is an engineering-first role where FDSEs are the technical owners responsible for integrating the Encord platform into strategic customer environments. They will work directly with users and their engineering teams to understand complex problems, make system design decisions, and build production software to solve them. As an early member of the Forward Deployed team, the individual will have a significant impact on shaping this critical engineering function. The role involves hands-on work across the entire stack, including APIs, data workflows, backend services, and product surfaces, with end-to-end ownership of technical problems. The FDSE will make architecture decisions under real production constraints, debug complex integrations, and build scalable solutions. They will operate autonomously, define technical approaches with minimal guidance, build trusted relationships with users, and provide direct feedback to the product and engineering roadmap.

Requirements

4+ years of software engineering experience with strong CS fundamentals
Experience building production software across the stack, from product-facing applications and APIs to backend services and data workflows
Strong system design judgment and experience making architecture decisions for complex software
Strong coding skills in a modern language; Python is a plus
Evidence of owning technical problems end to end, from design through production
Strong product judgment, technical communication, and stakeholder management

Nice To Haves

Experience working directly with users, customers, or external engineering teams is a plus
Experience in a high-growth startup, developer platform, or ML/data product environment

Responsibilities

Design and build production software for complex data, ML, and application environments
Own system design decisions for deployments, balancing correctness, scalability, performance, and speed
Work directly with customers and their engineering teams to understand ambiguous problems and define the right technical solution
Build across the stack, from APIs and data workflows to backend systems and product-facing functionality
Own deployments from technical scoping through implementation, rollout, and iteration
Turn recurring customer problems into reusable tooling and product capabilities
Debug complex production issues across reliability, performance, and data flow
Communicate technical decisions and trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders
Operate with high autonomy and own problems end to end
Feed deployment insights back into Product and Engineering, and help shape the FDSE function as the team grows