Forward Deployment Engineer – Senior - 5G/6G/NTN

Keysight Technologies, Inc.•San Diego, CA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Forward Deployment Engineer works inside a customer's development program as a software developer, systems engineer, and deployment lead in one role, and ships production code. This person determines and develops approaches to complex assignments, leads major deployment engagements using in-depth experience to influence outcomes, diagnoses problems deep within the protocol stack (Layer 1 to Layer 3), modifies software, validates fixes, and delivers controlled releases during a customer's early development, integration, and regression cycles. This is a customer-facing software engineering role where you will embed directly within a customer environment to customize, integrate, and deploy technology into real-world production systems, leading complex, high-impact problems.

Requirements

Typically requires a Bachelor's or Master's degree (or equivalent) and 6-7 years of relevant software/systems engineering experience.
Strong software-development experience across multiple software stacks
Preferred expertise in at least one domain (PHY/L1, MAC/RLC/PDCP and L2, or RRC/NAS and L3), plus working knowledge of adjacent layers and end-to-end 4G, 5G, and 5G-Advanced system behavior
Proficiency in C/C++ and Python (including API development), Linux, embedded or real-time software, and automated testing
Experience debugging protocol interactions through logs, traces, packet captures, call flows, and timing analysis
Familiarity with 3GPP specifications and the practical differences among standards compliance, interoperability, and implementation behavior
Experience in design and test instrumentation and test emulation tools
Ability to produce production-quality code that ships in a customer's build
The judgment and customer presence to operate inside confidential development programs
Excellent communication skills; able to explain technical trade-offs to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders
Willingness to relocate or travel to a specific customer site as required by the assignment
Extensive experience and breadth and depth of knowledge across multiple protocol layers and software stacks, with demonstrated ability to work independently
Demonstrated ability to lead technical discussions with customer

Responsibilities

Lead major or large-scale deployment engagements, coordinating across Keysight and customer engineering teams
Own technically complex deployment issues from first report to validated fix, and serve as the go-to technical resource for deployment issues within the account or program
Work onsite or closely with wireless customer development teams during major feature introductions
Analyze signaling flows, traces, timing behavior, and performance data to isolate failures across Keysight and customer implementations
Write and modify application and protocol-stack software, plus the supporting software and firmware the customer environment requires
Develop and extend Python APIs that customer teams integrate against
Build automation workflows inside the customer's workflows
Create diagnostic instrumentation when existing tools are insufficient
Develop, validate, and deploy controlled patches, feature flags, and interim releases under Keysight's release process
Run rapid prototyping loops directly with customers to test and iterate on new features based on live feedback
Act as a feedback loop to the core product and engineering teams, translating field problems into engineering requirements and defects for product management and R&D