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

Keysight Technologies, Inc.•Santa Clara, CA

9d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Forward Deployment Engineer works within a customer’s development program as a software developer, systems engineer, and deployment lead, shipping production code. The role determines and develops approaches to complex assignments and leads major deployment engagements using in-depth experience to influence outcomes. It diagnoses problems across protocol-stack layers 1 through 3, modifies software, validates fixes, and delivers controlled releases during customer development, integration, and regression cycles. This is a customer-facing software engineering position embedded directly in customer environments to customize, integrate, and deploy technology into production systems and lead complex, high-impact problems. The position is onsite in Santa Clara, California, with travel to local customer sites of up to 50%; occasional international travel may also be required. Relocation is available. The role level depends on applicable experience, education, and skills.

Requirements

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, or equivalent, typically required.
6–7 years of relevant software or systems engineering experience.
Strong software-development experience across multiple software stacks.
Proficiency in C/C++ and Python, including API development, Linux, embedded or real-time software, and automated testing.
Experience debugging protocol interactions using 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.
Judgment and customer presence to work within confidential development programs.
Excellent communication skills, including the ability to explain technical trade-offs to engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
Willingness to relocate or travel to a specific customer site as required by the assignment.
Extensive experience and broad, deep knowledge across multiple protocol layers and software stacks, with demonstrated ability to work independently.
Demonstrated ability to lead technical discussions with customers.

Nice To Haves

Expertise in at least one domain: PHY/L1, MAC/RLC/PDCP and L2, or RRC/NAS and L3.
Working knowledge of adjacent protocol layers and end-to-end 4G, 5G, and 5G-Advanced system behavior.

Responsibilities

Lead major or large-scale deployment engagements, coordinating across Keysight and customer engineering teams.
Own technically complex deployment issues from initial report through 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, as well as supporting software and firmware required by the customer environment.
Develop and extend Python APIs for customer teams to integrate against.
Build automation workflows within customer 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 with customers to test and iterate on features using live feedback.
Translate field problems into engineering requirements and defects for product management and R&D.